The lives of the English saints

UBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

NEWMAN'S LIVES OF THE
ENGLISH SAINTS

VOL. IV.

MANSUETI HJEREDITABUNT TERRAM

ET DELECTABUNTUR
IN MULTITUDINE PACIS

yTHE*LIVESOF
THfrENGLISH

SAINTS/

WRITTEN'BY
VARIOUS^HANDSAT
THBSUGGESTION'OF

JOHN*HENRY
NEWMAN

AFTERWARD&CARD1NAL

IN-.SIX^VOLUM ES
VOLUME FOUR.

INTRODUCTION *BY

ARTHURWOLLASTON
HUT TON

901 *LONDON>S.T.FREEMANTLE>PICCADILLY

4542

CONTENTS

ST. GILBERT

CHAP.

ADVERTISEMENT
I. INTRODUCTION
II. THE RECTORY ....

III. THE BISHOP'S PALACE

IV. THE NUNNERY ....
V. THE SPREAD OF THE INSTITUTE

VI. GILBERT IN FRANCE
VII. THE CANONS OF SKMPRINGHAM
VIII. GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS
IX. THE REBELLION
X. THE DEATH OF GILBERT

PAGB

3
7

25
35
46

65

74

97

U4

135

147

NORTHUMBRIAN SAINTS

ST. PAULINUS, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, DIED 644 . . I $9

ST. EDWIN, KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND, DIED 633 . l8o

ST. ETHELBURGA, QUEEN, DIED 633 . . . .203

ST. OSWALD, KING AND MARTYR, DIED 642 . . . 209

ST. OSWIN, KING AND MARTYR, DIED 65 1 . . 240

ST. EBBA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS, DIED 683 . . .271

ST. ADAMNAN, MONK OF COLDINGHAM, DIED 689 . 286

ST. BEGA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS, DIED 650 . . . 303

vi CONTENTS

ST. WILLIAM

CHAP. PAGE

I. ST, WILLIAM IN PROSPERITY 363

II. ST. WILLIAM OPPOSED BY ST. BERNARD . . 383

III. ST. WILLIAM DEPOSED 393

IV. ST. WILLIAM IN PENITENCE 408

V. ST. WILLIAM IN THE CALENDAR .... 424

APPENDIX 1 436

APPENDIX II 440

NOTES 442

LIFE OF
ST. GILBERT

PRIOR OF SEMPRINGHAM, CIRC. A.D. 1085-1189

VOL. IV.

ADVERTISEMENT

THE substance of the following pages is taken from
the life of St. Gilbert, published in the recent Edi-
tion of Dugdale's Monasticon, from a manuscript
in the British Museum. The name of the author
is unknown ; it appears however incidentally that
he was of the order of Sempringham, and knew St.
Gilbert personally in his last days. Portions of the
life have been put together from contemporary
sources, as, for instance, the well-known story of
the nuns of Watton, taken from St. Aelred's narra-
tive published in Twysden's Collection. On that
story itself it may be well to say a few words. The
time is now past when it was necessary to prove
that monasteries were not nests of wickedness.
Indeed it is high time that it should be so, for
to any one who looks into the evidence for such
an assertion, it is wonderful that it should ever
have been made. The case is made out simply
by raking together all the isolated facts related by
historians from the fourth century to the Reforma-
tion, and bringing them to bear against monastic
institutions without distinction of order, age, or
country. In one popular book, for instance, the
customs of Catholic monks and Manichaean here-
tics, of monks in their first fervour, and of Orders

4 ADVERTISEMENT

in a relaxed state, are put side by side. There
we may learn that monks were in the habit of
fasting on Sundays, of neglecting the fasts of the
Church, and of abstaining from meat, because the
Creation was evil ; 1 and all this because the Coun-
cil of Gangra condemned certain heretics for such
malpractices. What would be said if the same sort
of evidence was applied to any other history ? No
one denies that at some periods monasteries re-
quired reform, that is, that in the intervals of their
long services, monks conversed together instead
of keeping silence and employing themselves in
manual labour ; nay, that in process of time, and
in some monasteries, instances of flagrant wicked-
ness might be found. But the unfairness of heap-
ing all instances together, without attempting to
classify or arrange them historically, will be evi-
dent to any one who thinks at all seriously on
the subject. And indeed so materially have old
prejudices been weakened within the last few
years, that few persons will be found who con-
sider such stories, as the one above mentioned,
to be really specimens of the age in which they
occurred. Still, however, as they ever leave vague
and indefinite suspicions upon the mind, it may
be well to quote the opinion of the very work to
which we have alluded as especially unfair to the
monastic orders. In Fosbroke's British Monach-
ism, the following passage occurs : " It is singular
that notwithstanding the story of the poor nun in
Alfred of Revesby and Bale, Nigel Wireker says

i Fosbroke, British Monachism, ch. 2, p. n.

ADVERTISEMENT 5

nothing of this Order but what observation of the
rule implies ; but it was yet young when he
wrote."1 This Nigel was a satirist, who details
in verse the faults of the monastic orders of his
day. Cave makes him to have flourished about
the year 1200, full eighty years after the first in-
stitution of the Nuns of Sempringham.

It only remains to add that in writing the fol-
lowing pages, use has been made of a manuscript
life of St. Gilbert, kindly lent by its author, William
Lockhart, Esq., now a brother of the Institute of
Charity established at Loughborough.

1 Fosbroke, British Monachism, ch. 6, p. 78.

LIFE OF

ST. GILBERT

PRIOR OF SEMPRINGHAM, CIRC. A.D. 1085-1189

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

IT was a sad and dreary time for England when
first Norman William mounted the throne which
he inherited from the blameless Edward. The
nobles were wandering about among the woods and
forests of the land, and living like robbers among the
impassable marshes of the country ; while Edgar,
England's darling, was an exile in Scotland.1
Her pleasant homes were turned into military fast-
nesses, for each man fortified his dwelling ; and as
he closed door and window at night, the head of
the family said Benedicite, and the household
responded Dominus, not knowing whether their
homestead might not be burned over their heads at
night.2 Who can tell the horrors inflicted on
those of English blood by Odo, the Bishop of

1 Matt. Paris, p. 1001. 2 Ibid. p. 999.

8 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

Bayeux, and William Fitz-Osborne ? 1 Noble
English virgins and matrons were the victims of
the brutal Norman soldiers ; monasteries were
stripped of their lands, and many a Saxon expelled
from his possessions to make room for a foreigner.2
Geoffrey, the mail-clad Bishop of Coutances, alone
had 280 manors for his share of the spoil.3 A love
of hunting seems to be the darling sin of our
Norman monarchs, and to this William sacrificed
whole villages, with their churches and inhabitants.
He had a summary way of increasing his forest-
lands ; no need of planting trees, or waiting for the
slow growth of oaks and beeches. There were
then many woods in merry England, and he simply
swept away the homes of the villagers who dwelt
amongst and near them, so that the lands returned
to their natural state of wilderness, and the stag
couched undisturbed on the hearth of the peasants
or in the long fern where once was the altar of the
village church. But the greatest blot on William's
fair fame is the terrible depopulation of the north
of England. In the depth of winter the Conqueror
went forth to his fearful revenge ; he stalked on
boldly over mountains covered with snow and
frozen rivers ; the horses dropped down dead
with fatigue under his knights, but still he pressed
on. The aged Archbishop of York died of grief at
the approach of these miseries, and the Bishop of
Durham with the relics of St. Cuthbert fled before
him. Behind him was famine and pestilence,
and a hundred thousand men are said to have

1 Oderic, 507-523.
2 Ibid. 523. ' Ibid. 523.

INTRODUCTION 9

perished. He left not a village standing between
York and Durham.1

And yet, relentless and ambitious as he was,
Norman William was one of the best monarchs of
his age and race. If he was stern, it was with a
calm and majestic sternness, very different from
the bestial fury of his son the Red King. On his
death-bed he declared that it was on principle that
he had put in prison innocent men, because they
were dangerous.2 In the beginning of his reign
England had a prospect of peace, when he went
back to Normandy and displayed to his noble
visitors the beauty of the long-haired sons of
England and its gold-tipped drinking horns, and
congratulated himself on his easy conquest. His
policy in the first years of his reign tended to effect
a quiet and gradual amalgamation of the Norman
and Saxon races. He married Saxon maidens to
his nobles, and though he gave the lands of
Englishmen to his followers, yet on the other
hand he transplanted Englishmen to the Continent
and endowed them with Norman fiefs. His ad-
ministration of the law, though stern, was rigidly
just, and it was said that a girl laden with gold
might pass through England unharmed. He did
not oppress the poor ; it was rather the noble who
felt his iron yoke, and probably the Saxon serf was
not worse off under his Norman lord than under
the Saxon Thane. The Englishmen had already
begun to clip their long hair and to adopt Norman
fashions, when the rising under Earl Morcar took

1 Simeon, Dunelm. in ann. 1069.
2 Oderic, 660. William of Poictiers, 211.

io ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

place, and the beautiful and generous Edwin
treacherously perished, to the universal grief of
England. The Conqueror shed some tears over
him, but from that moment he seems to have
been convinced that a gentle hand could not rule
England, and his inexorable policy began. Again,
it should not be forgotten that in his exercise of
Church patronage, he was free from simony, the
besetting sin of his successors. He seems to have
had a quick perception of character ; and, with the
same acuteness by which on his death he foretold
that his wily Henry would outstrip his brethren,
he fixed upon great Churchmen to rule the English
Sees. It was perhaps fortunate for the Conqueror
that his interest coincided with his duty, but it is
true that the English Church was very much
improved by the Conquest. It may be that he
was desirous of weakening the native courts, and
breaking up the old organisation which kept up an
English feeling ; 1 but however this be, he 'certainly
gave a great boon to the Church when he restored
her internal jurisdiction instead of subjecting her
to the civil tribunal of the Hundred courts. What-
ever motives influenced him to remove the Saxon
Abbots from Saxon monasteries, it is certain that
generally religious houses flourished under the
Norman successors whom he appointed. The
Saxon clergy were too often in a state of rude
ignorance and jovial indulgence. The great Abbey
of Abingdon was well rid of its abbot, Sparhafoc,
the cunning craftsman, who absconded with the

1 Wilkins's Concilia, i. 368.

INTRODUCTION n

gold with which he had been entrusted to make a
new crown for the Confessor.1 A general reform
took place throughout England on the model of
St. Albans, which became a school of holy dis-
cipline under Paul its first Norman abbot. The
poor monks may have grumbled at his uncouth
Norman fish-pie,2 which he introduced into the
infirmary instead of the savoury meat, which was
too apt to invite the brethren to put themselves on
the sick list ; but they could not help acknowledg-
ing the vast advancement of religion under his
rule. The fine old Saxon character was every-
where greatly impaired, and nowhere more so than
in the Church ; a set of hunting and hawking
abbots, men who loved hippocras and mead, sat
in the seat of the ancient saints of the land. On
the whole, Abbot Paul may not have been far
wrong when he looked down on his predecessors,
though of the noblest blood in England, as some-
what thick-witted and ignorant. An intellectual
and active element was introduced into the English
Church which it had not before ; and though the
Saxon historian declares that England took no
part in the dispute between Pope and Antipope,
yet William, by his appointment of Lanfranc, pre-
pared the way for breaking down the mischievous
nationality which, even more than our tossing sea,
was beginning to cut us off from the rest of
Christendom.3

All these, however, are but the bright parts in a

1 Palgrave's Anglo-Saxon Constitution, p. 175.
2 Matt. Paris, vit. Abb. St. Alb. » Ibid, ubi sup.

12 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

dark picture ; the sins of Saxon England were to
be punished, and tremendous was the amount of
physical suffering which the poor country had to
endure. The fusion between the rival races could
only be effected by a red-hot furnace of suffering.
Such was the hatred which existed between them,
that even the ties of religion failed at first to bind
them together. When, for instance, a Norman
abbot came with his Norman chants to Glaston-
bury, the monks rebelled, and declared that they
would not change their beloved Gregorian tones ;
then Abbot Turstin introduced an armed band into
the church, and two monks were slain, one at the
very altar, the other at its foot. The monks
defended themselves as they best could with the
forms and candlesticks of the choir. At last the
monk's frock got the better of the coat of mail, and
the soldiers were driven out, but not till the church
had been stained with blood, and the crucifixes and
images of the Saints transfixed with arrows.1 In
St. Albans, too, Abbot Frederic was the head of the
Saxon interest in the south of England, and the
two hostile parties lasted in the abbey through the
time of the next abbot up to the election of his
successor. If these quarrels raged in the sanctuary
itself, it is easy to imagine that the world without
was not in a state of peace.2 There was again
another cause which increased the sufferings of
poor England, as well under the reign of the
Conqueror as of his successors ; and this was the
quarrel of the Norman barons with their kings.

1 Simeon, Dunelm. in ann. 1082.

1 Matt. Paris, vita Abb. St. Alb., p. 1005.

INTRODUCTION 13

In France feudalism was much more systematised
than in England. William, when in Normandy,
was but the head of a feudal state, the first among
his peers.1 He asked leave of his barons before he
invaded England, and when the field of Hastings
had been won, and William fairly seated on his
throne, the Norman nobles began to think that
their work was done, and returned home to their
manors in Normandy. William saw that he could
not count on a feudal army, and henceforth
employed mercenaries.2 When his authority was
strengthened in England he was much more
absolute across the Channel than on the Continent.
He held his English crown by a very different
tenure from that by which he wore his ducal
coronet in Normandy. There he was a feudal
baron of the King of France, but England he
held by right of conquest ; and this told even
more on his own followers than on the English.
To the Saxons he was the representative of Edward
the Confessor, whose laws he had sworn to observe,
but the Normans who followed him to England,
when once on English soil, lost their Norman,
without distinctly acquiring Saxon rights. Hence
the feudal system was at first much less defined in
England than in France ; and hence the bloody
wars which the English kings had to wage against
their nobles. Bitterly do the barons complain of
the Red King at Henry's accession, and fairly does
the monarch promise improvement; but the wily
Beauclerc only waits his time till he feels his throne

1 Oderic, 493. 2 Ibid. 512.

14 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

firm beneath him. It is true that these quarrels
made the English necessary to their Norman
monarchs ; loyally did they serve the Conqueror
on the Continent, and Normandy saw her fair fields
ravaged by her own Duke, leading a Saxon army.
Again his son William owed his throne to his
Saxon subjects, who, by the persuasion of their
Archbishop Lanfranc, assisted him against his dis-
affected barons. Ultimately the English gained by
it, but during this period of transition they were
miserably ground down between the opposing
parties. Neither king nor baron cared much for
the poor Saxon, and Magna Charta has much more
about baronial than about popular rights.

Alas for England in this dreadful time ! All
countries have had their day of probation, but few
have passed through such a fiery trial as our own.
Scarcely had England recovered from the Dane,
when the Norman came, and Dane-land, March-
land, and Saxon-land, with the remnants of the old
Cymri, in Cambria, all alike felt his yoke ; and if it
was an iron yoke under the Conqueror, what was it
under his successors ? The Conqueror had a rough
justice of his own, his long arm reached from one
end of England to the other, and he knew every
hide of land within it ; he even several times en-
deavoured to learn the language of his new subjects,
that he might judge their complaints himself, and
would have done so, if he had not been too old to
begin grammar anew.1 But under the reign of his
foul successor, " riot was the rule " of England.

1 Oderic, 520.

INTRODUCTION 15

He was a man almost ludicrous in his knavish
wickedness, who blasphemed and robbed with a
jest, and grinned over his captive when he had him
in his power.1 He introduced into England a class
of men even worse than the robber-soldier ; his
companions were effeminate youths, stained with
terrible crimes ; and far worse were they in their
silken robes and long hair parted in the middle,
like that of women, and their feet clad in peaked
shoes of fantastic shape, than the lawless soldier,
with his conical cap of iron, and his corslet of steel
rings, albeit he ruthlessly wasted the stock of the
husbandman. The foul lust of this man cried aloud
to heaven for vengeance, and before he fell like a
beast of the field, in the New Forest, men felt a
strange presentiment that the wrath of God was
coming upon him, and holy monks, even in their
dreams, prayed to our Lord : O Lord Jesus Christ,
Saviour of mankind, for whom Thou hast shed Thy
precious blood on the Cross, look in mercy upon
Thy people, groaning in misery under the yoke of
William.

Our Blessed Lord, however, did not leave His
people without consolation in this dreadful time ;
the Church was still up in arms against the world ;
though a contest was going on in her own bosom,
and such a man as Ralph Flambard sat on the throne
of Durham, yet she had inexhaustible resources in
the Saints whom the Lord raised up within her. St.
Anselm was a match for the Red King, with all his
satellites, whether soldiers or prelates. Even his

1 Will. Malmes. Gesta Reg., lib. 4.

16 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

father, inflexible as he was, was foiled by the crosier
of St. Wulstan ; and the simple monk, Guitmund,
refused to hold either bishopric or abbacy in Eng-
land, bidding the king beware lest the fate of unjust
conquerors should await him ; and so he left him,
and went back across the sea to his quiet monastery
of St. Leuffroy of the Cross, in Normandy, a monk
as poor as he came. So also, at the time when foul
and lawless wickedness was raging in England,
under William Rufus, the Lord was nurturing in
secret in His Church a man to whose angelic purity
it was afterwards given to create the only wholly
English Order, one destined to provide a refuge for
holy virgins from the snares of the world ; and it is
the life of this man that, by God's blessing, we hope
now to show truthfully to the reader.

GILBERT IN THE SCHOOLS

It was about the close of the reign of our first
William that Gilbert was born, though the exact
year is not known.1 His father, Sir Joceline, was a
Norman knight, and a good soldier, whose services
had been rewarded by many gifts of land in Lincoln-
shire, and especially with the lordship of Sempring-
ham in that county. He was probably one of the
vavassors, or inferior nobility of the realm.2 His

1 He was above a hundred years old when he died, in 1189.

2 The Bollandists have conjectured that Gilbert was connected with
Gilbert de Gant, a great baron who came over with William the
Conqueror, whose wife's cousin he was. They, however, have no
reason to give for their opinion, except that he was called Gilbert,
and that the family of Ghent, or Gant, held the barony of Folking-
ham, near Sempringham. It will afterwards appear, that Joceline

GILBERT IN THE SCHOOLS 17

mother was a Saxon lady, the daughter of a Thane,
and of the same rank as her husband. He is thus
an early instance of the blending of Norman and
Saxon blood, and though, as will be seen by-and-
by, his character partook more of the homeli-
ness of his mother's race, yet certain adventurous
journeyings on the Continent showed that he had
also some of the spirit of his kinsmen, who went
forth from home to gain England, the south of
Italy, and Sicily. But little is known of his parents,
and they soon disappear from the history, so that
they most probably died before he had attained
the age of manhood. All that appears from his
chronicler is, that they lived on their estate, "in
the midst of their people." A little before his birth,
it is said that his mother dreamt that the moon had
come down from the sky, to rest upon her bosom ;
and his fanciful disciple sees in it a presage that his
childhood, pale, wan, and sickly as the crescent of
the new moon, was destined by the grace of the
Sun of righteousness to expand into a full orb of
brightness. At all events it is certain that, as a
child, he was no favourite with those about him.
His recollections of childhood, as he used after-
wards, in extreme old age, to tell his canons, were
very painful. He was puny, plain, and shy ; his

was not a tenant in capite, and therefore not one of the great
nobility of the realm, and that he held the lands of Sempringham of
this very Gilbert. He is here called miles, and not comes, and it is
observable that in one place, the Latin life of Gilbert in Dugdale, says,
that Gilbert was "deplebeelectus."—V\\.. S. Gil. ap. Mon. Angl., vol. vi.
pp. 2, 14. The Conqueror was not by any means particular as to the
nobility of the men whom he employed, nor, indeed, were his successors,
as his son Henry, who is said to have been fond of low company.
VOL. IV. B

i8 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

father saw in him no qualities, either of mind or
body, to make a soldier. He was therefore, "by
divine providence, in his tender age," destined to be
a clerk; had it not been for his childish ailments,
he might have been all his days a thick - witted
baron, spending all his time in the saddle, with
harness on his back. Even here, however, he did
not seem at first to have found his element ; like
most children he disliked his book, and for a long
time he seems to have been allowed to run wild as
he would. His features were plain, and nothing is
said in his history about his mother's love. He
was looked upon as half an idiot, and he used to
tell of himself that the very servants would hardly
sit at table with him, so much was he neglected
and despised. Thus did God shield him from the
deceitfulness of riches, for it is expressly said that
his father was a rich man. He was nursed up in
the school of poverty and humiliation, and the
shadow cast from his sickly and unamiable child-
hood rested upon him throughout his life, tempering
the burning heat of prosperity.

As is often the case with dull children, the re-
proaches of his friends, or the natural expansion of
his mind, produced a sudden reaction, and he began
to apply himself to study. His parents seeing him
take this turn determined to send him to Paris ; l
thither then in early youth he went, as to the prin-

1 He is said to have gone in GaHias, which probably implies Paris.
It could not be Normandy, for which the author of Gilbert's life uses
Neustria. John of Salisbury, when he relates his going abroad to
study, says that he went in Gallias, and it only appears incidentally
that he means Paris. — Metalog. i. 10.

GILBERT IN THE SCHOOLS 19

cipal seat of learning in Europe. Our own Oxford,
though more ancient as a seat of learning than
Paris, had not yet attained its subsequent celeb-
rity. It was a strong and fair city, with its castle
rising high in the midst of the streams which all but
surrounded it,1 but it was then rather too warlike to
be a great seat of learning, and had to stand many a
siege before it attained to its eminence. Nor, in-
deed, was Oxford ever the intellectual centre of
Europe, as was Paris ; as the Archbishop of Canter-
bury was " the Pope of the farther world," so had
Oxford a world of its own, with intellects as active
and as penetrating as any which ruled the schools
on the Continent. But Paris had, even in Gilbert's
time, its four nations, one of which included even
the far east.2 To Paris then, and not to Oxford, came
Gilbert; and he might, had it pleased him, have found
food enough for his curiosity, for the quarrels be-
tween Realists and Nominalists had begun already to
be heard in the schools of Paris. Roscelinus, the
opponent of St. Anselm, had taught in Paris ; and
there was a person then in France whose name has
spread wider than that of the heretical head of the
Nominalists. Peter Abelard was still a young man,
though probably about ten years older than Gilbert.
The career of the -two youths was, however, to be
very different ; the terms of the schools are banished
from the life of Gilbert ; it is not known who was
his master, whether Bernard of Chartres, or William
of Champeaux, or Abelard himself. Not but that
he was, in after times, a distinguished teacher in

1 Gesta Stephani, p. 958. 2 Bulaeus, vol. ii. 666.

20 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

England, but it was not God's will that intellect
should be the most prominent part of his character.
All that is said of his studies at the school of Paris
is, that he made up by his diligence for the waste
of his early years, and " received an abundant talent
of learning." But it proved to be a good school of
discipline for him, and a marked change took place
in his character ; he had to struggle with poverty,
for his father, notwithstanding all his riches, gave
but a poor maintenance to the son who had dis-
appointed him. Again, amidst all the dangers which
surrounded him, by a severe purity, he offered up
his body as a sacrifice to the Lord, and thus the
grace of God trained him for that work which he
was destined to perform in the Church.

It is not known how long he remained at Paris,
but he came back to England with the degree of
master and license to teach.1 He was not of those
who remained on the mountain of St. Genevieve,
disputing over and over again on the old questions,
who were to be found by their friends after many
a long year not a whit advanced from the point
where they started. Nor did he repair, as did many
scholars in those days, to Salerno, to exercise after-
wards the more profitable art of medicine. Nor
again did he seek, the courts of king or prelate
to make his fortune. He did not even seek the
cloister, much less there, as saith the quiet satirist 2
of the schools, carry his proud heart under the
hood of St. Benedict and exempt himself from con-
ventual discipline, by keeping his old profession.

1 John of Salisbury, ii. 10.

2 Ibid. Metalog. i. 4.

GILBERT IN THE SCHOOLS 21

He went back to England, to his old home in his
father's house, and opened a school, or, to give
him his proper title, he became a regent master.

At this time, a schoolmaster was a man of great
importance ; his person was as inviolable as that of
a clerk,1 and he was considered as a half ecclesiasti-
cal personage. This office was a passport to the
favour of kings and to ecclesiastical dignity. Two
rulers of the schools of Bee at this time successively
sat on the throne of Canterbury ; Geoffrey, the
schoolmaster of St. Katherine's, became Abbot of St.
Albans, where a large library2 had lately been laid up
in the painted cupboards by Paul, the first Norman
abbot, and a whole manor set apart for its mainten-
ance. The education of the country was then car-
ried on by the old schools which had been connected
with the monasteries and the cathedrals and other
churches.3 No one could teach without a license,
and this was to be obtained from any master who
himself was the ruler of a school.4 Sometimes a
secular ruled the school of the monks, and a monk
might rule a secular school,5 but all were under

1 Laws of Edw. the Conf. ap. Wilkins, vol. 1. p. 310.

2 Matt. Paris, pp. 1007 and 1036.

3 The decree of the Council of Lateran mentions other churches
besides the cathedrals. Saxon cathedral schools are mentioned at the
end of the tenth century. —Wilkins, i. 265.

4 It does not seem that at first any master whatever could give a
license, at least in France, for it seems likely from a rescript of Alex-
ander III., that the masters of the cathedral schools claimed the
privilege of granting licenses, and the cause mentioned by John of
Salisbury, letter 19, implies a monopoly within a certain district.
The chancellor of the University of Paris is expressly allowed by
Alexander to exact a fee, which also seems to give him a monopoly.

6 Matt. Par. pp. 1007, 1039. St. Anselm, Ep. i. 30.

22 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

the control and patronage of the Church, as the
decrees for their protection testify,1 and it was con-
sidered almost simony to exact money for a pre-
sentation to a school, and no one could even let
his school to another master. The universities
were continually sending forth masters, who set
up unendowed schools for themselves ; and the
Church soon after this, in Pope Alexander III.'s
time, strengthened the hands of the old schools, by
ordaining that each cathedral chapter should set
apart a benefice for the master of the school, " be-
cause the Church of God, as a pious mother, is
bound to provide for the poor, lest the opportunity
of reading and improving themselves be taken away
from them." At the same time, the same Pope2
encourages to the utmost the establishment of new
schools, where the masters would necessarily be
paid by the scholars, by forbidding under an ana-
thema any cathedral dignitary from exacting money
for a license, from any one who wished to set up a
school, provided he were only competent.

Such was the situation in which Gilbert was now
placed ; he had found his way back to the home
of his youth, where he had lived neglected and
despised, but he was now a much more important
person than when he left it and was considered by
his father as a degenerate son. Now the whole
country round, from a great distance, came to hear
the new doctor from Paris. Not only boys were
put under his charge and young men became his
hearers, but girls and maidens also came to be

1 Council of London, A.D. 1138.

2 Rescript, p. 2. ch. 18. ap. Mansi.

GILBERT IN THE SCHOOLS 23

instructed by him. Females were not behindhand
in the intellectual enthusiasm of the period. Learn-
ing was a romantic quest, an unknown land, in
which even females might go forth and make
discoveries. The well-known Heloise will occur
to everybody, and the daughters of Manegold, a
schoolman celebrated in his day, taught philo-
sophy to those of their own sex. Here, then,
Gilbert found himself in a situation of great
responsibility. The obscure township of Semp-
ringham had suddenly, through his means, sprung
up into an extensive school. His father no longer
looked upon him as an unworthy scion, and found
that he might be usefully and even honourably
employed without breaking bones at tournaments,
or hunting and hawking over his lands. He there-
fore, instead of leaving him to glean a precarious
subsistence from his pupils, supported him out of
his possessions, and this enabled Gilbert to assume
an authority over his scholars, which he could not
otherwise have maintained. He walked about in
a dress becoming the son of the lord of Sempring-
ham, but all the while he was in heart a monk, and
he began immediately to form his pupils into an
association, which might save them from the
dangers to which their situation exposed them.
Not content with teaching them the trivium and
quadrivium, he became their spiritual guide, and
subjected them to a species of monastic discipline.
Knowing how a breath may spoil the beautiful
innocence of childhood, and yet how easily holy
discipline may shut out the knowledge of evil till
the soul is strong enough to fight against it, he

24 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

taught them to consecrate the whole day to God.
The male children slept all together in a dormitory,
where all might be controlled ; he taught them
reverence at church, and at certain times and
places a religious silence was observed, and they
had stated times for study and prayer. He was
now happier than he had ever been before, beloved
and honoured in his own home, and the guide of
happy children and of a band of youths and maidens,
who praised the Lord under his direction.

CHAPTER II

THE RECTORY

HE was not long, however, to enjoy this peace ; two
new churches were founded in his father's lands at
Sempringham and Tirington. It does not appear
whether Sir Joceline was himself the founder of
them, at all events he conceived that the right of
presentation belonged to him, and he nominated
his son to the vacant churches. It was much
against his will that he accepted the charge ; he
knew that it would probably be disputed, and a
lawsuit was of all things the most opposed to his
character. On the other hand, he thought it his
duty to defend his father's rights, and as the cause
would come before an ecclesiastical tribunal and
under the cognisance of the bishop, he could have
no scruple in accepting the benefice, if it were
given in his favour. A long lawsuit followed, as he
had expected. If ever there was a system in con-
fusion it was the parochial system of England at the
Conquest. It had been introduced amongst us
later than in any other of the existing kingdoms in
Europe, and traces existed even after the conquest
of the old division of church property by the
bishop himself among his clergy ; Lanfranc, for

instance, and William of St. Carilefe, Bishop of

25

26 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

Durham, were the first in their respective sees to
separate the bishop's lands from those of the
monks of the cathedral, who originally performed
the functions of the parish priests. Thus the
parishes in England were in that most dangerous
of states, a state of transition ; at first, matters are
generally clear and simple, and then comes an
intermediate state, when questions arise and every-
thing is vague and floating, till evils and abuses
compel authority to step in. At first all was in the
hands of the bishop, and then the nobleman must
have a private chapel, or oratory, as it was called,
and nothing was more natural than that he should
appoint his own chaplain, subject to the bishop's
approval. Afterwards he began to find it too
much to pay both chaplain and parish priest, and
a law was necessary to force him to pay tithe to
the mother church.1 Out of these chapels often
arose parish churches where there were none, and
so the chapelry became a benefice, and the noble-
man the patron. Or else the lord of a manor
founded or endowed a church, and then the
grateful church gave him the patronage, which
became hereditary in his family or attached to
the land. But a far different sort of patronage
soon sprung up ; church property was too
tempting, and lay too much at the mercy of a
strong hand, not to be exposed to the rapacity
of an unscrupulous noble. The defenceless
church was ever a convenient fund whence earl
and baron drew money, whether a fortification

1 Leges Eccl. Canuti, Wilkins's Concil. p. 302.

THE RECTORY 27

was to be constructed, or a body of armed
men fitted out.1 Sometimes a portion of the
church lands was made over on a long lease to
some powerful baron, who, with his good sword,
was to clear them of a nest of robbers lurking in the
woods, or to defend the church in times of danger.2
These lands but too often never came back to
the church. In other cases some benefactor or
his descendant repented of his or his ancestor's
liberality, and resumed what had been solemnly
given over to the service of God. In the time of
the Danes almost all the parish churches north of
the Thames3 had been destroyed, and when the
footprints of the invader had passed away, the
nobles took possession of the lands and kept them
in their own hands. Church lands were thus
passed on from father to son, like any other manor
belonging to the lord, and were given as a dowry
on the marriage of a daughter, and of course the
right of presentation passed on with the posses-
sion.4 A miserable pittance out of the tithes and
produce was paid to some priest who was appointed
to serve the church, and the rest belonged to the
lord. The clergy themselves were by no means
exempt from blame ; the servile chaplain would
come into the lord and lady's chamber and profane
the most holy mysteries by saying mass to them
in their bed. Sometimes the clergy themselves
were the spoilers of the church ; most of the Saxon

1 III. Lat. Council, canon 19. 2 Matt. Paris, p. 998.

3 Palgrave's Anglo-Saxon Const, p. 167.

4 For an instance of the advocatio or presentation passing on with
an unjust possession, vide Matt, of Paris, p. 1016.

28 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR/

priests were married, and livings often became a
family inheritance, enjoyed in a direct line by the
son after the father. Even in later times, in
Normandy, mere children were sometimes put in
possession of ecclesiastical benefices.1 The right
of presentation was sold like any other right belong-
ing to the land, and that with the connivance of
bishops.2 Such was the miserable state of England
before the Conquest, and the very improvement of
affairs brought with it its own troubles. Parish
churches sprang up everywhere,3 and men, women,
and children, might often be seen winding up the
little pathway through the fields, to the sound of
the merry bells, where never church had been
before. But then first, the rights of the old parish
were to be respected, and it was ordered that on
some high festival, the priests of the new churches
should go every year in procession, with cross and
banner, to the mother church. Again, the rights
of patrons were to be settled ; and it is said that
in England and Sweden these matters were in
greater confusion than anywhere else. Certain it
is, that when, in the third Lateran Council, the
Church stepped in to settle the law of patronage,
more rescripts on the subject were addressed by
Pope Alexander III. to England than to any other
country.

It is not surprising, then, that Sir Joceline of
Sempringham should have had a lawsuit about
the right of patronage. Even in those turbulent

1 Council of Avranches, p. 1172.

- John of Salisbury, de Nug. Cur. 7, 17.

;J Leges Regis Edwardi ap. Wilkins.

THE RECTORY 29

days men had recourse to law as well as now;
and quibbles too about seals and charters were
common, as when the Lincoln men objected to
the Abbot of St. Albans that the charters of the
abbey had no seal,1 and it was answered that in
good King Offa's time a golden cross was used
instead of the pendent seal which the Confessor
introduced. It does not, however, appear what was
the objection made to Gilbert's father. It appears
likely, from the terms used by Gilbert when he
instituted the priory, that the church lands belonged
to him not only as rector, but as lord of the manor
inherited from his father, and this may have been
the ground on which his father's right was ques-
tioned. A change had taken place in Sempringham
since the Domesday survey, for it was now in the
hundred of Alveton, and belonged to Gilbert of
Ghent, who held it free of taxes of the king, which
does not seem to have been the case at the time
when the survey was taken. Of this nobleman, Sir
Joceline held it as the mesne lord,2 and it may
be that it was doubted whether the presentation
belonged to him or to Gilbert of Ghent.3 Or else,

1 Matt. Paris, p. 1026.

2 This appears from the fact that Gilbert of Ghent gave the land to
St. Gilbert to found his priory, and is said in the charter to have been
a tenant in captte. The dominium of the land is said, indeed, to have
belonged to Sir Joceline, but it appears that "domain" was applied
to the manor of a mesne lord, v. Ellis's Index to Domesday, i. 230.
The under-tenants of a nobleman were sometimes called barones. —
Oderic, p. 589.

3 A somewhat similar cause is decided in a rescript of Alexander
III., in which it appears that a controversy had arisen between the
nunnery of Wilton and a knight who had a lease of a part of the
lands, concerning the right of presentation to a church situated on the
land.

30 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

it may be that the title of these new-comers to the
lands themselves appeared to be rather of might
than right. However this be, the lawsuit was
decided in Gilbert's favour, and he was accord-
ingly canonically instituted by the Bishop of
Lincoln, as rector of the parishes of Sempring-
ham and Tirington. He was not in orders at the
time when he became possessed of these livings ;
he therefore appointed a chaplain to serve the
church in his room, and there was nothing irregular
in this proceeding, for a license was allowed to
students to hold ecclesiastical benefices without
being as yet ordained.1

It was a beautiful sight, the parish of Seinpring-
ham under the rule of its youthful rector. His was
a gentle rule, for he was himself under obedience,
and such men are ever calm and disciplined in their
manners, and meek in heart. He subjected himself
in all things to his chaplain, who was his confessor
and spiritual guide. Being master of the school,
the education of his parishioners came naturally
under his control, and he catechised and taught
them with unwearied diligence. He taught them

1 In rescripts of Alexander III., p. xv. ch. 1., non-residence is allowed
studio literarum. As late as Council of Rouen, 1231, the alternative
is allowed to clerks possessing benefices, either of being ordained or
betaking themselves to the study of theology. Vicarii or curates
(otherwise called capellani) are recognised by Alexander III., and the
rights of the rectors, to whom they were bound by oath, protected
against them. — Vide Rescripts, p. xxxix. Even a lay rector is protected
against his curate, though he is ordered to be ordained. See also
Councils of Tours and of London, 1163 and 1175. A great laxity
had been tolerated previous to the Lateran Council, and Alexander
allowed a person who had been instituted before the age of fifteen to
keep his benefice on that ground. — Rescripts, p. xxiii. 5.

THE RECTORY 31

the holy mysteries of religion through the external
rites of the Church ; he knew well how the sweet
service of the Church soothes and softens down
the rough hearts of rustics ; he taught them
early to reverence the house of God as the abode
of angels, and above all the temple, on the altar of
which was reserved the adorable sacrament. He
humanised the minds of the simple peasantry by
this teaching, and filled them with a religious awe,
so that it is said that a parishioner of Sempringham
could at once be known from any other by his
reverential air on entering a church. At first he
lived among his parishioners in the village itself of
Sempringham. He, with his chaplain, had a lodg-
ing in the house where dwelt the father of a family l
with his wife and children. The chaplain must
have found himself in a new situation, for it was
not often that the poor Anglo-Saxon priest was
thus treated by the lay-rector of the living ; and
the son of the lord of the manor did not often
abase himself to dwell in the house of the churl.
Gilbert, however, found here more happiness than
he had done in his father's hall ; he was now in his
vocation winning souls to God, working among the
poor of the earth. The daughter of the house-
holder with whom he dwelt was a holy and devout
maiden, whose modest graces endeared her to the
hearts of all the villagers. She was Gilbert's scholar,
and was growing up beneath his eye in simplicity
and holiness. God, however, did not allow him to
dwell long beneath this peaceful roof. One night

1 Paterfamilias, the House-bonde. — Vide Palgrave, p. 16.

32 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

he dreamed that he had laid his hand upon the
maiden's bosom, and was prevented by some
strange power from again withdrawing it. On
awaking he trembled, for he feared lest God had
warned him by this dream that he was on the verge
of evil. He was utterly unconscious of the danger,
but he revealed the temptation and the dream to
his confessor, and asked him his opinion. The
priest, in return, confessed that the same feeling
had come over him ; the result was, that they re-
solved to quit the neighbourhood of what might
become danger. Gilbert had never wittingly con-
nected evil with the pure and holy being before
him ; but his heart misgave him, and he went
away. He knew that chastity was too bright and
glorious a jewel to risk the loss of it ; no man may
think himself secure ; an evil look or thought in-
dulged in has sometimes made the first all at
once to become the last ; therefore the greatest
saints have placed strictest guard upon the slightest
thought, word, and action. Even the spotless and
ever-virgin Mary trembled when she saw the angel
enter her chamber.1 And He, who was infinitely
more than sinless by grace, even by nature im-
peccable, because He was the Lord from heaven,
He has allowed it to be recorded that His disciples
wondered that He talked with a woman. All the
actions of our blessed Lord are most real, for He
had taken upon Himself the very reality of our flesh,
of the substance of the Virgin Mary; but each
action is also most highly significant and symboli-

1 St. Ambr. in Luc.

THE RECTORY 33

cal, so that, though all conduce to our great glory,
yet all may be a warning to us in our greatest
shame. Thus, though it would be unutterable
blasphemy to connect with Him the possibility of
sin, yet by this little act He has been graciously
pleased to leave us an example, that as we should
keep a dove-like purity of eye and thought, we
should also, for the love of God, brave the scandal
of evil tongues. And Gilbert imitated his blessed
Lord, for though he fled from the very thought of
danger, he still continued to guide her by his
counsel ; she does not disappear from the history,
and by-and-by we shall see that the dream might
have another meaning. After he left this house, he
dwelt in a chamber constructed over the porch of
the parish church of St. Andrew, at Sempringham.
He scarcely ever left this holy place, but was either
occupied in prayer in the church itself, or teaching
his school, or catechising his parishioners. His
scholars, though still seculars, continued to live
all but as monks under his guidance ; and the care
which he took in forming their minds and in ruling
his parish left him but little time to himself. He
was not an idle ruler, nor did his sweetness of
manner prevent his exertion of his authority wher-
ever it was necessary. None know how to be
angry but those who can be angry with calmness,
as our Lord when He made a whip of cords and
drove out them that sold doves, and overturned the
tables of the money-changers. On one occasion
one of his parishioners, when he had reaped his
land, laid all the rich corn in his barn, without
giving thanks to God, and separating the tenth

VOL. IV. C

34 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

part for the Church. He was chuckling over his
fraud, and thinking that the rector was much too
simple to find it out, and much too spiritual to care
for it, if he did. But he was mistaken, for not only
did the rector find out the fraud, but he made him
take all the corn out of his barn and count it before
him sheaf by sheaf ; and then he collected together
the tenth part, and heaping it up in the midst of
the village, burnt it all in open day, in the sight of
the wondering rustics. They then learned to know
Gilbert better, and found, that though he cared but
little about his own rights, he would not allow the
Church of God, which he represented, to lose a
tittle of her dues.

CHAPTER III

THE BISHOP'S PALACE

A PARISIAN doctor was, however, too great a
personage to be left in the little village of Semp-
ringham ; he was not destined to remain long in
peace with his scholars and parishioners. Robert
Bloet, his diocesan, the Bishop of Lincoln, sent
for him, made him a clerk, by conferring on him
one of the minor orders, and bade him live in his
household. What sort of life he was likely to lead
at this time, and why he was sent for, may be
guessed at, because it is known what sort of a
man the Bishop himself was. It is to be hoped
that he was a sadder and a wiser man than he
had been, when he sent for Gilbert. He had been
chancellor of England under William Rufus, by
whom he was made Bishop of Lincoln, and under
Henry I. High Justiciar ; he was a man whose
exterior was formed to win all hearts, and whose
eloquent tongue and talents for business had
enabled him to gain the favour of the wild and
stormy William, as well as the smooth and un-
scrupulous Henry. His career runs parallel with
St. Anselm's, for both were appointed by William
Rufus, in that good mood which sickness brought
upon him, but the career of the two prelates soon

35

36 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

separated. It would be needless to follow them ;
suffice it to say that Robert found to his cost that
it was easier to rule the Red King, when the wild
fit was on him, than to escape the more dangerous
anger of Henry. The king had been beaten by the
Saint, and probably loved not those ministers who
had helped him to his defeat. He turned round on
the Bishop of Lincoln, and contrived to find a
charge against him by which he was stripped of
much of his wealth. Then, when his knights were
dismissed and his glittering train of noble pages
gone, and his gold and silver vessels broken up, he
looked round on his almost empty halls, on the
shaven crowns and sober dresses of his clerks, and
rough sheep-skin dresses of his serving-men, and
burst into tears. Bitterly then must he have re-
pented of his cowardice, when, with the other three
bishops, he said to the bold Saint, that his holiness
was above them, and that he must go on his way
alone, for the love of kindred and of the world had
wound round their hearts too tightly to allow them
to follow.1 Bitterly must he have wept over the
time when he consecrated the abbots, who had
received investiture from Henry's hand. It was
at this time, probably, that he sent for Gilbert, that
his gentle hand might soothe him in his desolation
and penitence. The close of the prelate's busy life
was at hand ; one day some one wished to comfort
him by repeating some words of praise, with which
the king had honoured him in his absence. But
he knew the crafty king too well to trust him, and

1 Eadmer ap. Anselm. ed. Ben. pp. 4, 7, 65.

THE BISHOP'S PALACE 37

said with a sigh : " The king praises none of his
servants but those whom he would utterly smite
down." 1 A few days after he went to Woodstock,
where Henry was holding high festival with a
number of nobles, and the curious beasts which
he had collected from foreign lands ; as the prelate
was walking with the king and the Bishop of Salis-
bury, he fell down in a fit of apoplexy and never
spoke more.

Gilbert's mission at the episcopal palace of Lincoln
did not, however, stop here, and he had probably a
harder part to play with Alexander, who succeeded
to the bishopric, than with his broken-hearted pre-
decessor. He was the nephew of the greatest prelate
in England, that Roger of Salisbury whom Henry
I., when his fortunes were at the lowest, took into
his service, as a poor priest, at Caen. Henry, when
he became King of England, did not forget his old
companion in poverty, and it was a fine thing to be
the nephew of Roger, for he had at his disposal
whatever he chose to ask for. Alexander was
brought up in his palace, and unhappily imbibed
a taste for splendour and for architecture. Had he
stopped when he rebuilt his cathedral, and vaulted
it with stone, it had been well ; but, unfortunately,
he loved military architecture as well as ecclesias-
tical. At Newark, a stately castle was built by him
on a hill, which stretched its green and flowery
slope above the river Trent ; 2 at Sleaford and
Banbury, two more castles kept watch over his

1 Henry of Huntingdon, ap. Wharton. p. ii. p. 695.
2 Vernantissimum florida compositione. Henric. Huntin. lib. 8,
P- 389.

38 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

extensive diocese. This might have been allowed
during Henry's reign ; he would much rather have
seen castles in the hands of his bishops than of the
nobles, whom the policy of his whole reign tended
to humble. He knew well that the lance was a
much safer weapon in a bishop's hands, than the
pastoral staff. Stephen, his successor, was not so
politic ; kings loved to reduce their prelates to the
state of feudal barons, but there was rather too
much feudality in three good castles of stone,
besides that of Devizes, said to be the finest of
Europe, belonging to Alexander's uncle of Salis-
bury. He determined to take the castles into his
own custody, and the bishops soon gave him an
opportunity. They would ride about with armed
retainers, and men with arms in their hands will
quarrel, so when in 1139 they came to Oxford,
to a council held by the king, the soldiers of the
bishops fought with those of Alan of Brittany,
about the lodgings assigned to their masters.
Much blood was shed, and one soldier killed,
but at last the bishops won the day, and the earl
was beaten. Stephen seized upon this pretext,
and bade the bishops give up their castles, as a
hostage for their good behaviour. On their refusal,
he seized the prelates, and kept them in custody.
Soon after, he took Alexander with him to Newark,
and, as he had done before to Roger, he declared
that till the castle was surrendered, no food should
pass the Bishop's lips. With tears did Alexander
implore his own garrison to yield his fair castle,
and with no less wretchedness did he see the king's
soldiers marching up the green slope, and enter-

THE BISHOP'S PALACE 39

ing the gate of his stronghold ; and before he had
turned his back upon it, the royal standard of
England floated on its walls. The issue of the
preceding contest, about investitures, had taught
men that the office of the bishop was totally dis-
tinct from that of the temporal lord : as a lord, he
might do homage, but the ring and the staff could
not come from an earthly king. If, therefore,
English prelates would now sink the bishop in
the baron, they must pay the penalty. Stephen
afterwards pleaded in council, that he had starved
Roger, not as bishop, but as his own servant.

We have here somewhat anticipated the history,
in order to show this bishop's character ; Alexander
was taught a severe lesson, and meddled no more
with military matters. As, however, Gilbert had
ceased to be an inmate in the bishop's palace before
his misfortunes, he must have dwelt in the bishop's
court at Lincoln, in the height of its magnificence.
His eyes must have been dazzled with the glittering
of burnished armour, mixing in the splendid pageant
with the cope of the ecclesiastic, while the cross
preceded the bishop and the lance brought up the
rear ; his ears were bewildered with the clang of
trumpets and the ringing of steel. What was he to
do in the midst of such a court ? And yet, strange
to say, he was in high favour with both Robert and
Alexander. Evil is mixed up with good in Christ's
Church, like the cross and the weapons of the
world in Alexander's retinue. Gilbert, going about
this splendid house in his plain clerical apparel,
was the representative of the cross. Such was his
intimacy with the bishop, that he slept in the same

40 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

chamber with him. Where could have been his
vigils and his fasts at the sumptuous tables and in
the magnificent bedchamber of Alexander ? He
managed to contrive both ; he said himself, with a
reproachful tone, after he became a monk, that
when he was in the bishop's palace he used to tame
his flesh by more fasts, prayers, and spiritual exer-
cises, than he ever could compass afterwards.
Sometimes the inmates of the palace found that he
was too good to suit them, as for instance, the
clerk, who, after once reciting the office with him,
found that he lengthened the service so much by
frequently bowing his knees to the ground, that,
says Gilbert's biographer, " he swore that he would
never pray with him again." One day a prelate
came on a visit to the episcopal palace at Lincoln,
and shared the chamber where the bishop and
Gilbert of Sempringham slept. The strange bishop
tossed upon his couch and could not sleep ; his
eye wandered about the darkened room, enlight-
ened only by the glimmering of a taper. All on a
sudden he saw a shadow moving quickly up and
down on the opposite wall. He gazed on it in fear
for some time, but at last mustering courage, he rose
and stealthily approached. He found to his surprise
Gilbert awake and in prayer, sometimes standing,
sometimes on his knees, raising his hands to heaven
in earnest supplication. The bishop shrunk back
to his couch, and next morning he smilingly
accused his brother of Lincoln of having a mounte-
bank in his room to dance to him at night. Strange
is the approximation of good and evil in those days
of faith ; perhaps it was then more frequent than it

THE BISHOP'S PALACE 41

is now, or rather from the greatness of the good
the evil came out in greater contrast and in an
exaggerated form. Gilbert and Alexander of Lin-
coln lying side by side ! And yet, stranger perhaps
is the mixture of good and evil in the same heart.
In the pages of history various personages float
before us and appear as the types of certain prin-
ciples ; yet, when by chance we can look upon
them close, we find them not so bad. Thus Alex-
ander to us is the mere worldly prelate ; he appears,
as he was called in the Roman court, only as the
magnificent Alexander. Yet there was a struggle
in his heart too, and Gilbert was to him as his good
angel. He insisted on his being ordained priest,
and almost by force the awful power of the priest-
hood was conferred on Gilbert. The bishop's next
step showed his just appreciation of his powers and
turn of mind. The din of Nominalism and Realism
had sounded about Gilbert in vain, without pro-
ducing any impression ; abstract questions could
not awaken his mind ; but put before him a case of
conscience or of spiritual direction, he would
grapple with it at once. The bishop accordingly
made him, as far as we can make out the vague
terms of his biographer, a sort of penitentiary1 of
the diocese. At times, Alexander himself, with all
his worldliness, knelt at his feet in the confessional.
A man who seeks a severe confessor, cannot be
wholly bad, and though Gilbert, as we shall see,

1 The first general institution of a penitentiary was at the fourth
Lateran Council, 1215, but it appears from Thomassin that par-
ticular dioceses in earlier times had their penitentiaries. Vet. et Nov.
Disc. i. 2. c. 10.

42 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

left him still in the midst of his grandeur, there is
proof that in the day of adversity, he had not for-
gotten the Church of St. Andrew at Sempringham,
or its holy rector.

Gilbert's work now lay among the sins and
wickednesses of mankind ; the worst and most
horrid forms of sin came under his cognisance, for
of this nature were those reserved for the jurisdic-
tion of the bishop, whose representative he was.
To him also the clergy of the diocese referred all
cases of difficulty which occurred in the practice of
the confessional. This required both learning and
experience ; instead of his little churches of Semp-
ringham and Tirington, he had the whole diocese
of Lincoln for his parish. To decide the cases
which came before him, in his day, probably was
more difficult than it would have been in the next
century. He lived only on the verge of the age of
systems. Canon law had not been compiled by
Gratian ; no one had as yet professed it at Paris,
nor had Master Vacarius lectured at Oxford ; l ap-
peals to Rome were but just in England taking the
legal and precise form,2 finally fixed by Alexander
III. And yet canons are as old as the first council
of Jerusalem, recorded in the Acts, and appeals to
Rome have been since Athanasius threw himself
and his cause on Pope Julius ; so, too, the germs of
casuistry existed in the old penitentials, though
Christian morals had not yet been moulded into a
science by St. Thomas. Gilbert had only the more

1 Gerv. Act. Pont. Cant. ap. Twysden, p. 1665 ; Chron. Norm. ap.
Duchesne, p. 983.

2 Ibid, and Henr. Huntin. lib. viii. p. 226 ; Script, post. Bed.

THE BISHOP'S PALACE 43

difficult task to fulfil ; the tremendous power of the
keys was chiefly delegated to him by the bishop,
and he had so much the less to guide him in its
exercise. What are the difficulties in casuistry, it is
hard for those to tell to whom its existence is un-
known. All appears smooth to him who hardly
knows that he has a conscience, so little does he
exercise it ; so, also, the difficulties of the confes-
sional can only be known to him who is practised
in it. Gilbert had to frame for himself the rules of
that art created by Christianity, which has sin for
its subject matter, with all the sickening details of
the wickedness of the human soul, that wonderful
art which is founded on Christ's divine command,
"Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted."
Christian morals has, from its very nobleness,
many difficulties in practice ; this, however, is an
imperfection incident to the highest human sciences,
and their professors cannot consistently urge it as
an objection against this one, which is divine. It
has to do with subjects to which language is inade-
quate, and which thought can hardly compass, and
yet it is a real science, which can be taken to pieces
and viewed on all sides, and drawn out at length,
and be systematised, and made consistent. It has
its definitions and its axioms, its premises and its
deductions. But though to define a venial sin may
be easy, yet to tell it in practice from one that is
mortal, may be difficult. The broken language of a
penitent is hard to interpret ; and all the dark laby-
rinths of a wicked heart hard to disentangle. Cases
are infinitely varied in practice, for the hideous
forms of guilt are infinite, and many of them may

44 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

come across theories, however clearly drawn out.
If it be hard to tell how to rectify a complicated
disease of the body, what must it be when, by ex-
ternal symptoms, men try to judge of the complex
motives of a human heart, jostling and crossing
each other in every direction ? Christianity, while
it has exalted, has rendered the science of morals
more complex. As Christ, on the mount, delivered
a new code, so the Church has created new virtues
and new crimes, possible only in Christianity, as,
for instance, simony and heresy. This may help us
to understand Gilbert's functions, all but the highest
that could be on earth. His eye had to look curi-
ously into the putrid sores of the human soul, and
his heart must have often sunk within him ; yet he
had the power to cleanse them. He was a physician
as well as a judge. Truly it is the order of priest-
hood which makes Christian history to differ from
Pagan. The history of Christendom is a terrible
scene ; in reading its records of wholesale simony
and petty jobbing, of bold crime and coward virtue,
we are tempted to say, "in what respect is the world
changed?" But looking for a moment on Christian
times, even with the cold eye of an historian, they
have this remarkable difference from those which
preceded them, that all through, there exists a body
of men, the ministers of a kingdom, standing beside
the kingdoms of the earth, with laws of its own, and
resting entirely on invisible sanctions, the meanest
of them claiming in his own sphere to be above an
earthly king, and at whose feet kings may kneel.
These men, again, are not an hereditary caste; they
are cut off from earthly ties ; they have only the

THE BISHOP'S PALACE 45

usufruct of their property, and a stranger possesses
it after them. These are the men who constitute
Christianity, as far as it is a visible system ; take
away the independence of its jurisdiction, and the
power of its priests, to all external appearance at
least, Christendom is merged in the world. It was
this compact system which Gilbert had now in a
great measure to wield in the diocese of Lincoln,
as the bishop's representative. This is priestcraft
proper, and a gentle craft it is. It can keep the
soul of the child pure from sin, or crush it in the
bud ; preserve the young man chaste as a maiden,
and heal the wounds in the soul of a hardened
sinner.

CHAPTER IV

THE NUNNERY

WHAT all this while has become of Gilbert's two
parishes of Sempringham and Tirington ? Was his
school broken up/and were his scholars dispersed ?
His chronicler says nothing about it, but, as will
appear in the sequel, he certainly kept up his
communication with his favourite pupils. The
whole of the revenues of Tirington he gave up
absolutely out of his hands ; and out of those
of Sempringham, he took but what was really
necessary, bestowing the rest entirely upon the
poor. Though the bishop's command and the
office which he held must have taken away all
scruple from his mind as to non-residence, still he
was too poor in spirit to derive more from his
benefice than the mere necessaries of life. His
heart was not at rest in Alexander's palace ; the
baron and the bishop were far too much identified
to suit him. The trumpet of the cavalier ever and
anon broke in sharply on the cathedral chant and
the song of the choir. Besides, in any bishop's
palace he would not have been in his element. He
was a true parish priest, and the rude rafters of
his own little church suited him far better than
the stone vault of the cathedral. His heart was

THE NUNNERY 47

with the rustics whom he had taught, and whose
minds he had refined by his instructions ; he loved
the wild fens, where the poor Saxon still lurked,
better than the episcopal city. His plans had all
been broken up when the bishop's command had
called him away from Sempringham, and he had
only submitted to leave it in obedience to the will
of God. His heart yearned for the youths and
maidens whom he had taught in his school, and
for his village children, and the rude husbandmen
and housewives whose souls he had raised from
the dust, to which many a long year of toil had
well-nigh bound them. In addition to this, he
seems to have felt a growing conviction that with
such a bishop as Alexander he could do nothing
where he was. The secular clergy had never yet
recovered from the wretched state in which the
Norman invasion had found them ; and however
gradual and merciful had been the introduction of
the law of celibacy among them, still the canons
of the councils at the time show plainly that the
new state of things sat uneasily upon them. They
still wanted their hereditary benefices, and that
continual progress towards the secularisation of
Church property to which the Saxon church had
been tending. The grave and august idea of a
body of unmarried clergy is with difficulty grasped
by those on whom it is binding, hard as it is to
eradicate it, when once it has taken root. Flagrant
disorders had therefore broken out among the
clergy, which required new and stringent laws to
repress them. Alexander was present at the
council which met to reform the Church in 1127,

48 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

but a splendid and a military prelate was not the
man to enforce the strict provisions of such an
assembly. Gilbert seems to have felt this bitterly.
One of the seven archdeaconries of Lincoln was
offered to him by Alexander, probably soon after
this very council of London. Its sixth canon had
solemnly conjured all archdeacons to assist in
enforcing celibacy, as was their duty, and Gilbert
felt that this high office was one which his
shoulders could not bear. The archdeacons of
Lincoln were great men ; and one of them is
said by Henry of Huntingdon, to be "the richest
of all the archdeacons now in England." But
Gilbert loved poverty too well to be a princely
churchman, and he refused the office, saying, at
the same time, that he knew no quicker way to
perdition. He felt himself totally unfit to rule so
many ; his path, he thought, lay among the poor
of the earth, among simple rustics and children ;
but he trembled at the thought of being set on
high among the clergy, with power to chastise.
The bishop, seeing him so much in earnest, gave
up the point.

It appears to have been not long after this, and
about the year 1130, that he left the bishop's
palace altogether.1 The immediate cause of his
departure is not known. That the step did not
alienate Alexander from him is evident from the

1 It appears that he left it in the reign of Henry I., for his bio-
grapher says that the nunnery was founded by him in that reign. As
Henry died in 1135, he probably quitted Lincoln a few years before
that time. The Derby annals bring it nearer, by fixing the date of the
nunnery at 1131. It probably was between 1127 and 1131.

THE NUNNERY 49

uniform support which he ever after received from
the bishop. He went back to his parish with the
greatest joy ; he found much alteration in his old
friends. The young girl whom he had left in her
father's house, was now a grown-up maiden. He
himself was changed also : he went away a layman,
but he was now a priest, and his parishioners were
now properly his flock, whom he could feed with
his own hand, and not by another's. Besides this,
he had many years' experience in the confessional,
and the guidance of souls. The habits of purity
and austerity which he had ever practised, had now
become invigorated by years, and his character for
sanctity had been spread abroad by his high station,
so as to be well-nigh above the reach of scandal.
It should also be observed, that from the fact which
he himself states, of the large patrimony which had
fallen to his lot, his father must have died between
his return from Paris, and the time of which we are
now writing. He was, therefore, lord of the manor
of Sempringham, and a rich man. From the terms
which he uses,1 it also appears that the power
which he had over his parish churches was very
great. It may be that the Church lands were in the
hands of his family ; at all events, he was the
patron, as well as the incumbent of the living.
Possessed, as he was, also, of the favour of one of
the most powerful prelates in England, what might
he not hope to do, with wealth and power in his
hands ? He had long made up his mind to give up
all for Christ's sake ; the only question was, how

1 He says that he wishes " mancipare divino cultui ecclesias," which
he possessed " libera possessione."

VOL. IV. D

50 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

it was to be done. Father and mother were dead,
and he was alone in the world ; for it does not
appear that he had either brother or sister. His
whole thoughts were concentrated in his spiritual
children ; and they were to him father and mother,
and brethren and sisters. For their use, he in-
tended to give up his patrimony, and to restore the
churches of Sempringham and Tirington, absolutely
into the hands of the Church, which, during his
father's life, he could not do. His intimacy with the
bishop left him very much the choice of the mode
of so doing, and he waited quietly God's time, till
he could see how it could best be done. He cer-
tainly had no deep views on the subject ; and the
foundation of an order appears never to have
entered his head. With all its deep self-devotion,
his mind was of a quiet and a homely cast. Indeed,
his was, in all respects, if we may so say, a homely
lot ; his parish was the home of his childhood, and
his parishioners were those whose familiar faces he
had known, even when, a neglected boy in his
father's house, he was so little like the heir to the
lands and the manor ; the youths and the maidens
whom he was now guiding, were the first favourite
pupils of his school. His character, therefore, is a
specimen of one which seldom appears in the
history of the times, and which yet must be taken
into the account, if we would understand them. It
is quite true, that they were times of romance ; the
history of most monasteries would probably be
what is called romantic. As, in the world, rapine
and violence, and clever fraud, were the order of
the day, so also, in religion, the great and mighty

THE NUNNERY 51

good by which God overthrew wickedness, was
often done, as it were, by fits and starts, by a holy
violence, which took heaven and earth by force.
The whole structure of society was framed on a
notion of law, partially restraining physical force,
and yet legalising it, by bringing it under its cog-
nisance. Thus the legal trial by battle, which, be
it remembered, sometimes decided ecclesiastical
causes,1 was but the law interposing, to regulate
what would be sure to have taken place, without its
interposition. So again, the monastic rule was the
regulation of the self-devotion with which God
inspired holy men and women, who thirsted for a
more perfect way. Hence, side by side with the
charter of the monastery, would often be its history,
telling how there once dwelt in the greenwood an
outlaw, and as he slept on a grassy knoll, among
his merry men, under the trees, in the summer time,
God, in His mercy, sent him a vision, and he left
his followers and became a hermit, in the place
where, afterwards, the abbey was built.2 And
these stories were very often the real truth, though
at other times they were legends — that is, truth,
mixed with falsehood. At the same time, it should
always be remembered, that as, besides the romantic
side of things, there were law and custom, and
deep policy in the affairs of the world, so also, the
Church was a compact and an orderly body, with
its rules of holy obedience, its laws and canons. It
had its quiet parish priests, and to this class, to all
appearance, Gilbert was to the end of life to belong.

1 Matt. Par. p. 1053.
2 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. 6, 893.

52 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

England had, it is true, its secluded nooks and its
vast forests, where earl or baron,1 as he rode
through its depths, winding his horn in the merry
chase, would light on a holy hermit, clad in skins,
serving God in the hole of the rock ; but it had be-
sides its green meadows and noiseless streams,
with the willows on their banks, and the miller's
pool, and all the tame scenery which meets us
nowadays. Gilbert's lot seemed likely to be cast in
with those whose good deeds are confined to one
little spot ; but the quiet brook often widens into
the broad river, and our Lord willed that this lowly
tree, planted by the water-side, should bear fruit an
hundred-fold.

His first thought was to establish a monastery in
the parish, and to connect it with the parish church.
It was to be the headquarters of religion at Semp-
ringham, and the visible centre round which all
religious associations would cling. In this way
alone could the wild and untamed vices of the rude
people be cured ; human nature can hardly believe
that its strong passions can be restrained at all, till
they have seen men within whom all human desires
are actually dead. Gilbert first intended that his
future convent was to be inhabited by monks ; he
watched diligently the spiritual progress of the most
promising among the men of his flock, but they
were bowed down with the cares of this world. If
he could keep them from open sin, he thought him-
self happy. Monks and nuns are not commodities
to be found everywhere, and to be moulded for the

1 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. 6, 893.

THE NUNNERY 53

nonce whenever they are wanted. Funds may be
found, and buildings raised, and vestments manu-
factured, but it requires a special vocation from God
to make man or woman renounce the world. And
God at this time favoured Gilbert, for He had, in
His goodness, determined that amidst the wicked-
ness of the land, Sempringham should be the abode
of holy virgins, whose purity would rise up before
Him as a sacrifice of a sweet - smelling savour.
From the early habits which he had acquired in his
school, Gilbert had ever loved children ; probably
the remembrance of his own wayward childhood
might have risen up before him, and inspired him
with a desire of guiding them to keep their souls
in their first unsullied brightness. He had thus
acquired a natural influence over the children of
the place which he had never lost, and when he
came back from Lincoln, a priest of high reputation,
none welcomed him more gladly than the maidens,
who were but children when he left them. The
world had not sullied them in the meanwhile, and
he found that the good seed which he had sown in
their hearts had sprung up and borne fruit. And
now that his plan of founding a community of
monks had failed, he turned his thoughts towards
them. The strict habits of religious seclusion in
which he had been cherished, indisposed him
greatly to attempt the establishment of a nunnery.
How could he, who had quitted the house in which
he lodged on account of a dream, now undertake
the government of a female community ? It is true
that the intercourse between the sisters and their
director was so reduced to rule that, however

54 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

familiar, it was one of ceremony, like the ordinary
customs of society ; yet from his innate mistrust of
self, he shrunk from the responsibility. It is pro-
bable that some time elapsed before he could make
up his mind to take the final step. At length he
could not resist such evident marks of God's will ;
the quiet and calm resolution of the maidens to
dedicate themselves for ever, showed that it was not
the sentimentalism of a moment, but a real vocation
from above. He went to the Bishop of Lincoln to
consult him on the subject ; Alexander received
him with the utmost cordiality, and entering warmly
into his views, sent him back with all the necessary
powers. The holy virgins were filled with joy at
the news. None can estimate the greatness of the
joy of a woman's heart when the love of Christ has
fully seized upon it. Terrible as it is in its strength
when fixed upon an earthly object, its intensity is
increased tenfold when it rests upon the heavenly
spouse. How wonderful has been the self-devotion
of women from the first dawn of Christianity !
None can think upon the wonders of the Incarna-
tion without thinking upon the mother of the Lord;
and none can tell the wellspring of joy in that heart
on which lay the Saviour of the world, for a favour
was granted to her which not the highest archangel
can estimate. Ever since that time some portions
of the same joy must in a measure have inundated
tlie heart of every virgin who has become the spouse
of the Lord. What must have been the gush of joy
in the heart of the Magdalene when the ever-blessed
Lord said, " Mary," and she turned and saw Him,
the everlasting source of all joy ? Such in its

THE NUNNERY 55

measure must have been the happiness of the seven
virgins for whom Gilbert, with the Bishop's leave,
now built a cloister adjoining the north wall of the
church of Sempringham. Among them, the maiden
whom Gilbert left in her father's house, shut up her
beauty for ever from the eyes of men. These seven
virgins, chanting the praises of God in the dead of
night around the altar of that little church, doubt-
less averted the anger of God from the land, with
all its terrible pollutions. Such souls as these, who
sit in quiet, with mortified bodies and chastened
hearts ever fixed on heaven, have their own place
in the Christian scheme. If any one doubts it, let
him think on the time when the Lord dwelt with
His virgin mother in the house at Nazareth. No
one will say that any part of our Lord's sojourn on
earth was useless ; and yet the world knows nothing
of what was going on during these many years, ex-
cept that in that poor cottage were obedience, and
daily tasks and contemplation.

Before, however, going on to notice the impor-
tant result to which these small beginnings of the
Order of Sempringham afterwards grew, we should
cast our eyes across the Channel to France, where
a parallel movement had taken place rather earlier
in the century. It is seldom that any movement
occurs in any corner of the Church without being
felt elsewhere ; nothing stops with itself in the
body of Christ, it at once vibrates in some other
part, sometimes close, and sometimes distant.
Thus, about the year noo, the blessed Robert
of Arbrissel, had founded the Abbey of Fonte-
vraud, which agrees remarkably with what the

56 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

Priory of Sempringham, as we shall see, soon
became. Like Gilbert, Robert was a Parisian
doctor, and like him had been summoned from
a school to be the chief adviser of the bishop of
his diocese, and the reformer of the clergy. On
the death of this prelate, Silvester, Bishop of
Rennes, the rage of those who loved not his
reforms, drove him away. Henceforth his life
presents a marked contrast to that of Gilbert ; he
became a hermit, and sought the depths of a wild
forest near Anjou. The savage wilderness did
not, however, sour his heart ; he learned to con-
verse writh God ; and when soon after his solitude
was discovered, the sweetness which shone on
his emaciated features, won all beholders ; and
when he spoke, the fervour of his words gained
the hearts of his hearers. Crowds streamed into
the wilderness to hear this new preacher of
righteousness, and many left the world on the
spot, to join him in his forest. Urban II., in his
voyage to France, heard of Robert's fame, and
sent for him ; he bade him preach before the
council of Anjou, and the burning words of this
hermit, thus fresh from the wilderness, and re-
appearing among men, seemed to him so striking,
that he called him the Sower of the Word, and
bade him henceforth go about as an Apostolic
preacher. Robert obeyed the supreme pontiff,
and went forth as a missionary. He went about the
neighbouring dioceses, penetrating into the wildest
villages, and preaching in streets and market-
places. The effect was electric ; crowds of men and
women followed him everywhere, and everywhere

THE NUNNERY 57

some souls were converted to Christ, from a life
of wickedness. He walked barefoot, fasted con-
tinually, and often spent the whole night in
prayer. Pope Urban was right ; this was just
the apostle to despatch among a population where
fearful licentiousness is said to have reigned.
Women, especially, were touched by his words,
and it is expressly said, that while two of his
companions assisted him in directing men, he had
the exclusive direction of females. We know that
our most blessed Lord, to whom the sight of sin
must have been an inconceivable pain, suffered a
foul adulteress to be near Him, and said to her,
Go, and sin no more ; Mary Magdalene came
still nearer to Him, and washed His feet with her
tears. And Robert, following the steps of his
Lord, was especially known as the converter of
the most miserable outcasts of society. One day,
at Rouen, he entered into a haunt of sin ; some
unhappy wretches clustered about him, and he
spoke to them of the mercy of Christ. They
looked on, in stupid wonder, till one of them said,
" Who art thou that speakest thus ? For twenty
years have I been in this house, and no one has
spoken to me of God, or bade me not despair of
mercy." The poor creatures followed him out of
the house, and afterwards led a life of penitence.
But it was not only such miserable victims that
Robert, by God's grace, saved from inveterate sin ;
Bertrada de Montfort, who in the very Cathedral
of Tours, on the eve of Whitsunday, seduced the
heart of King Philip of France, and planned to fly
from her lord, the Count of Anjou — the dangerous

58 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

and scheming beauty, the witchery of whose
talents had well-nigh won her a crown — Bertrada,
the scandal of the age, whom a Pope in council
had excommunicated with her guilty paramour,
was converted by Robert, and ended her days in
the most rude penances, a nun of Fontevraud. It
was there, in the midst of waste and uncultivated
lands, covered with a wild thicket of brushwood,
that Robert collected all those whom he had won
from the world for Christ. His first monastery
was but a collection of rude huts, separated into
two divisions, with two separate oratories, one for
the brethren, the other for the sisters. Around
that part in which the females dwelt, was a rough
enclosure, which was nothing but a high hedge of
thorns.1 The nuns were all day long engaged in
prayer and psalmody, while the monks laboured
with their hands to support them, and struggled
with the stubborn thorn and the tangled weeds, the

i Mr. Michelet, in his History of France, has repeated a story against
the blessed Robert which even Bayle, though he indulged his foul wit
on the subject, acknowledged to be false. The story is founded on
two letters, one of Geoffrey of Vendome, and another of Marbodus,
Bishop of Rennes. Mr. Michelet should have recollected that both
Geoffrey and Marbodus profess to speak merely on hearsay, and
Geoffrey is known to have changed his opinion, while it may be
presumed that Marbodus did so too, from the fact, that his friend
Hildebert, of Mans, was one of Robert's greatest patrons. Besides
which, there is great reason to believe that the letter ascribed to
Marbodus is really by the heretic, Roscelinus. It is a great pity that
Mr. Michelet's inveterate habit of generalising should lead him to
prefer general, to particular truth. We do not charge him with dis-
honesty ; on his theory, all history is a myth, and, therefore, an opinion
is just as valuable as a fact. When we have myths we must make the
best of them ; but let not good personages of flesh and blood be
treated like Romulus and Remus, if facts can be had.

THE NUNNERY 59

growth of centuries, around their habitation. Even
in the lifetime of Robert, Fontevraud had grown
into a large monastery. Within its enclosure
there were, in fact, three monasteries, one for holy
virgins, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, another
for penitent women, called after St. Mary Magdalene,
and a third was a lazar-house for the sick and the
lepers. The reform spread throughout France, and
in many parts of the country lands were given to
Robert, where he founded new houses, where those
unhappy women, whom the world had soiled, might
find a refuge, where they might chastise by rude
penances those bodies, the temples of the Holy
Ghost, which they had stained. But the peculiarity
of the Order was, that the Abbess everywhere held
jurisdiction over the monks as well as the nuns ; the
men were there only to labour for the sisters, as St.
John ministered to the blessed Virgin. Robert's
work did not die with him, and many a daughter of
the blood royal of France became famous for her
piety as Abbess of Fontevraud. Here our own
Henry Plantagenet and Richard Cceur de Lion
were buried : and here Eleanor too, Henry's queen,
the beautiful and guilty daughter of William of
Aquitaine, who transferred herself with Guienne
and Poitou, and all her lands, to the English crown,
she, too, after her long and restless life, bequeathed
her body to Fontevraud, that it might lie by the
side of her husband and her son.

Any one will see at once the correspondence of
the rise of this Order on the Continent with that
of the nunnery of Sempringham, and a great con-
formity between the two will soon be apparent, as

6o ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

Sempringham develops ; and yet there at once also
appears a great contrast between them. The move-
ment in the two countries appears to have been
different. While in France the queens of the time
are the scandal of the age ; those of England and
Scotland appear as reformers of the corrupt court
of their husbands. The beautiful sorceress Bertrada
placed the King of France under the ban of the
Church of Rome, ever the great defender of the
purity of marriage. Queen Eleanor, with her licen-
tious train, had the merit of ruining the crusade
which St. Bernard preached ; she too must needs
go to the Holy Land, the daughter of the sunny
south, the -land of the gay science and of heresy,
she whose character had far more to do with the
burning East than became a Christian queen. But
on our side of the Channel were Matilda and St.
Margaret, the reformers of Scotland, who banished
from the kingdom many foul relics of Paganism
which still infected it ; and in England was Matilda,
the wife of Henry I., the "good Queen Maude,"
whom the English hailed as the daughter of their
ancient kings, and whose marriage tended to amal-
gamate the Norman and the Saxon races. Terrible
as was the licentiousness in England, the nobles
seem everywhere to have been the guilty parties.
The monasteries were filled with virgins who had
fled thither to preserve themselves from the dangers
to which they were exposed. Matilda herself was
taken out of a convent, whither she had fled for
that purpose, and was for that reason adjudged by
St. Anselm not to have really taken the veil, and to
be still competent to become Henry's wife. The

THE NUNNERY 61

wicked nobles, whom the gentle majesty of her
virtue kept in awe, nicknamed the king and queen
Godric and Godiva,1 and laughed at Henry's domes-
tic life with his quiet Saxon queen. They still re-
membered the terrible license of the Red King's
wicked court. Corresponding to this difference
between the two countries was the contrast in the
characters of Gilbert and of Robert. The wild
energy of the hermit of Arbrissel was necessary
to bear down the torrent of vice which opposed
him ; could any one but a barefooted hermit speak
to hearts spoiled by inveterate sin, and cleanse
bosoms encrusted with a leprosy of guilt ? Gil-
bert had to do with untainted lilies fit for the
garden of the Lord, he therefore had but to build
his cloister adjoining to the quiet parish church of
Sempringham, while the rough thorn-hedge, and
the rougher discipline of Robert were necessary for
Fontevraud. While Robert roams through France
by the apostolic mandate, preaching everywhere a
crusade of penitence, Gilbert returns to the home
of his childhood, and places his seven holy virgins
in the church where he had first learned to worship
God, and where, in all probability, he had been
baptized. The Church of Christ could find room
enough for both, just as around the Cross, there
was room for the ever-virgin Mary and St. Mary
Magdalene. Holy virginity is no less a portion of
Christianity than holy penitence, and the denial of
the virtue of the one most certainly impairs the full

1 The wit seems to consist in the names being Saxon. Godiva
comes, probably, from the old story of the Saxon queen who saved
the people from taxation.

62 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

belief in the other, for the Communion of Saints
and the Forgiveness of Sins lie close together in
the creed. Nor is holy virginity the creation of an
age of romance ; Gilbert, when he built the cloister
at Sempringham, thought but little, as we shall soon
see, of picturesque processions and flowing robes of
white ; he only thought of the Blessed Virgin, and
of St. John, and of the white-robed choir in heaven,
who have followed the Virgin Lamb wherever He
hath gone. Still less did he think about the useful-
ness of what he was doing ; as well might he have
thought about the uses of chastity, for virginity is
only chastity carried to a supernatural degree. Our
Blessed Lord has exalted human nature ; He hath
made it the partaker of His own Divinity ; and we
have virtues which were never possible before the
coming of the Lord, because their formal cause was
wanting, even the Holy Spirit. Faith, Hope, and
Charity have their foundation in the will and in the
intellect, yet they are supernatural, because of the
new powers which the adorable Incarnation has
infused into our nature. It is not then to be won-
dered at, if their outward acts should sometimes
take a form which seemed beyond the powers of a
human body and a human soul, voluntary poverty,
and holy obedience, and a chaste virginity. The
Cross of Christ has stretched itself over a vast field,
of which heathen morality never dreamed, and they
who deny the merit of virginity leave out a portion
of Christian morals. They who can believe that no
real righteousness is infused into the Saint, will, of
course, see no beauty in the virgin soul, though she
be all glorious within, with the intense fire of love,

THE NUNNERY 63

which the Holy Spirit has poured into her. The
Cross has a philosophy of its own, which thwarts in
unexpected directions the philosophy of the world.
If Gilbert had ever heard of a certain Jovinian, he
might have known that he was half a stoic, as well
as wholly heretic ; because he could see no degrees
in saintliness, neither could he discern that one vice
was worse than another.1 Again the deep philoso-
pher who has set the bounds of the human intellect,
which it cannot pass, he too has imagined a mysteri-
ous bound to the human will, and denies in his
system the merit of holy virginity. So be it, but
Christ has illumined the intellect with faith, and
the will with charity, and there will ever be holy
virgins in the Church in spite of transcendental
philosophy. The seven nuns of Sempringham
doubtless knew nothing of this philosophy; but
they knew of our blessed Lord's words, pro-
mising eternal life to those who should give
up father and mother, brethren and sisters, or wife,
for His sake. The Church, by regulating monastic
vows, only pointed out one way of doing what
Christ prescribed in the general, and furnished her
children with the means of gaining this blessing.
The Bible says nothing about monks and nuns, but
it says a great deal about prayer, and about taking
up the cross. It is quite true that the cross has
sanctified domestic affections, by raising marriage
to a dignity which it never possessed before. And
yet human affections are terrible things ; love is as
strong and insatiable as death,2 and how hard is it

1 St. Aug. de Hser. 82, see the connection in St. Thomas Aq.
contra gen. lib. iii. 189. 2 Cant. viii.

64 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

to love, as though we loved not, and to weep, as
though we wept not, and to laugh, as though we
laughed not. Happy are they to whom human
affections are not all joy ; the mother has her cross
as well as the nun, and it will be blessed to her.
Happy they who have to tend the sick-bed of a
parent or a friend ; they need seek no further, they
have their cross. Yet, happiest of all is she, who
is marked out for ever from the world, whose
slightest action assumes the character of adoration,
because she is bound by a vow to her heavenly
Spouse, as an earthly bride is bound by the nuptial
vow to her earthly lord. Vows should only be
made under the protection of a strong religious
system, but when they can be taken, they whom
God by His providence calls, as He often does, to
lead a single life, are far happier in the peaceful
cloister than in the world. Even though some
may have mistaken their vocation, and it had been
better to marry, yet their vows are a protection,
and every Christian can, by God's grace, in any
case live a virgin life. Terrible cases have occurred,
as we may by-and-by see, of fallen nuns, but have
fearful passions never broken out in the world ?

CHAPTER V

THE SPREAD OF THE INSTITUTE

WHEN the cloister was finished, and Alexander of
Lincoln had blessed it, and received the profession
of the nuns, Gilbert had done a great work. He
had gained an object on which to spend his patri-
mony, and had saved seven souls from the troubles
and dangers of the world. But he was still far
from having done his work; the institute of his
nuns was still rude and unformed, and it does not
yet appear what rule they followed. It was about
the year 1131 when first they quitted the world,
and it was many years before the Order was fully
formed, and the steps by which it grew are but
scantily related by the chronicler of his life. First,
it was a difficulty with him how his convent was to
be supplied with necessaries. The sisters could not
go out themselves, and butchers and bakers could
not go to them. He first employed women who
lived in the world to transmit to them what they
wanted for their daily food. This was, however, but
a clumsy contrivance, and contrary to the first rule
of monastic discipline, that a convent should be
perfect in itself, and entirely independent of the
world around. The echoes of worldly news could
not fail to find their way into the nun's cell, and to
VOL. IV. 65 E

66 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

call up images which ought to be banished from
her heart. Earthly cares must often call to earth
the mind of her who rules her husband's house,
though these too are meritorious, if done to the
glory of God ; but the nun is continually to have
her conversation in heaven, where Christ sitteth
at the right hand of God. To effect this, the
world must be diligently kept out of her heart ; and
the girls who went backwards and forwards, be-
tween market and the convent, were but too willing
retailers of news. This was for a long time a diffi-
culty with Gilbert ; at length, one day, William, the
first Abbot of Rievaux, passed through Sempring-
ham, and paid its rector a visit. Gilbert had very
probably never seen the white habit before, for the
Cistercian reform had not long been introduced
into England. From that moment he conceived a
respect for the Cistercians, which never quitted
him. He consulted William on his difficulties, and
was advised by him to institute an Order of lay-
sisters who were to help the choir-nuns, and to
perform menial offices for them ; in other words,
they were to correspond to the lay-brethren of
Citeaux. Gilbert took this advice, but he was too
patient and too much accustomed to wait on the
providence of God to introduce the change vio-
lently. The poor peasant girls whom he employed
were too much accustomed to hard labour and
coarse fare to find even conventual discipline hard,
but there were habits of humility, obedience, and
strict purity to be acquired, which could not be
learned in a day. He called them before him, and
explained to them what he required of them, with-

SPREAD OF THE INSTITUTE 67

out abating a jot of the rigour of the discipline.
The poor girls at first shrunk from the trial, but
when he spoke to them from time to time of con-
tempt of the world, of the giving up of their own ,
will, and of the rewards of heaven, they first listened
o him attentively, and then by degrees their hearts
an to yield. It was far better for them to live
n a convent, though they were under restraint, and
hey could not go out when they would, than to
vork all day long in the fields of a merciless task-
master, and not be sure of earning a livelihood
after all. The sound of the convent-bell would
weeten their toil, and kind and holy words console
heir hearts ; besides, what was not least, they
vould be sure of being fed and clothed, and at last
hey determined to close with their pastor's pro-
Dosal, and to give up the world. This, however,
did not satisfy Gilbert, and he waited another year
Before he received their profession. He clothed
hem like the nuns, except that, instead of the
ample cuculla and scapular of the nuns, the lay-
sisters wore a black cloak, lined with white lamb's
wool ; the broad hood of their garment was made
arge enough to cover the shoulders, and to envelop
the throat and bosom like the scapular of the nuns.
The simple occupations of these poor peasant girls
shows more than anything else how monastic dis-
cipline is only Christianity in its perfection, hallow-
ing and taking up into itself the meanest relations
of life. The lay-sister was to take the hard work in
brewing and baking, in spinning and washing; if
the nuns were otherwise engaged and did not come
to help them, they were not to wait, but to begin

68 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

without them. They mended clothes and prepare
the washing-tubs, and some of them ever attende
in the kitchen, to chop up the vegetables, and t
hand utensils to the nun who was cook for th
week. In these offices, intermingled with psalmod
and other spiritual exercises at stated hours, the
passed their lives, and for the temporal thing
which they ministered the good nuns instructe<
them in the science of the Cross, and Gilbert him
self assiduously trained them up, that their earthl
toil might bring fruit in heaven.

But though women can help each other to bak
and brew, they cannot plough and dig; and Gilber
soon found that he must needs procure labourer
for the grounds attached to the nunnery. A con
vent of monks can support itself, but nuns, thougl
they can do much alone, require men to labour fo
them. Again, in this difficulty, his friends of Citeau:
helped him. He was in a greater strait than before
lay-sisters were comparatively easy to manage, espe
daily in what was a nunnery already, but the rud
rustic was a much more unmanageable creature
and most unpromising to reduce to monastic rule
But while he was deliberating, some monks of th«
Cistercian Order rode into his habitation, accom
panied, as usual, by some lay-brethren. The whoL
equipage struck Gilbert, who had been used to th<
splendid train of Alexander of Lincoln. He at ono
seized the idea of the lay-brethren of the Order, am
determined thus to imitate the Cistercians, by turn
ing every farmhouse on his estates into something
like a monastery, where, throughout all the appur
tenances of cow-houses, stables, and barns, al

SPREAD OF THE INSTITUTE 69

should be subject to religious discipline. He had
already done a vast service to Sempringham ; for
how many poor women, whom poverty, and their
defenceless condition, exposed to danger, had he
safely housed in a religious house ? He now was
to do the same for the men ; and in this case his
mercy was extended even to a lower and more
degraded class. Some whom he took were the
churls from his own land, who were born on his
demesne, and whom he had known and supported
from their infancy ; but others were of the lowest
class in the land, runaway serfs,1 whom now he
freed, by taking them into religion ; others again,
were wayside beggars. From these poor creatures
he made up his lay-brethren ; he clothed them in
the same rough garb as the Cistercian brethren,
only that, besides the white tunic, they wore, under
the outer cloak of hodden grey, a short mantle,
lined with skins, reaching to the middle of the
thigh, which, as it does not occur in the rule of
Citeaux, was probably an English garment, better
adapted to our inclement sky ; over the head was
drawn the Cistercian hood, covering the shoulders
and the chest. These poor men were not taught to
read, but they were taught humility, obedience, and
the strictest purity, and were treated with a tender-
ness to which they had been utter strangers in the
world. Instead of being ground down to the earth
by a secular lord they were under the gentle rule
of the Church, and their temporal and eternal

1 A dominis suis transfugos, quos nomen religionis mancipavit.
These may have been churls, and not serfs, but they were most pro-
bably the latter, for he seems to contrast them with his own famuli.

LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

70 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

welfare was cared for. They had a chapter of their
own, like monks, and services proportioned to their
condition in life, and their spiritual director guided
them in the narrow way which leads to everlasting
life. Especially were they warned to beware of the
Saxon vice of intoxication ; and, above all, were they
forbidden to set up the place " which, in Teutonic
tongue, is called the tap.'; l

It is impossible to calculate how far the influence
of such a community might spread among the
peasantry throughout England, when there was
established among them, and before their eyes,
such an institute, where, for the love of God,
brethren, who had been rude peasants like them-
selves, were serving religious women whom they
had never seen, except in church, with their veils
over their faces, though they had heard their voices
mingling in the chant. On the accession of the
lay-brethren to his family Gilbert's nunnery might
be said to be now complete ; all were hard at work
in the community ; in the granges around it the
lay-brethren were distributed, each at work at his
own occupation ; in one corner was the blacksmith
at his forge, in his black rochet, or scanty coat
without sleeves ; 2 and here was the carter,3 with
his horses shorn of the flowing honours of the mane
and tail, that they might accord with monastic sim-
plicity ; in another place was the brother who had
the charge of the whole grange, with the keys at his
girdle, diligently searching for eggs, and storing up
the honey, that all may be sent to the refectory of

1 Vid. Gilbertine rule ap. Dugdale, vol. vi. p. 2, p. 65.

2 Reg. Gilb. De frat. i. 3 Ibid. 19.

SPREAD OF THE INSTITUTE 71

the nunnery.1 And this peaceful family went on in
the stormy times when Stephen was battling for the
crown, when, in the self-same county, Alexander,
Bishop of Lincoln, was shorn of his three castles.
Alarms of war were sounding about them ; for it
was near Lincoln that Stephen fought the battle
where he was taken prisoner ; and the great baron,
Gilbert of Ghent, of whom was held the manor of
Sempringham, shared the King's captivity.2 Abbeys
and monasteries were burning about them, and the
Church, all over England, was in trouble ; the See
of York was vacant ; Durham was in the hands of
Comyn, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was in
little favour with the king ; and when he threatened
to cross over the Alps, and appeal to the Pope,
Stephen declared that he might find it no such easy
matter to return. And yet, in the midst of all this
trouble, the convent of Sempringham was holding
its even course ; in the darkest times there are ever
some little nooks in the Church where there is peace.
Even Alexander, of Lincoln, found comfort in
thinking on the parish church of Sempringham,
and all that was going on about it. The death of
his uncle, Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, apparently,
by chagrin at the fall of his power, seems to have
deeply affected him, and he determined to give to
the nuns of Sempringham an island, called Haver-
holm, formed by some marshy ground, and the
waters of a little river near Sleaford, the site of
one of his unfortunate castles.3 He had before

1 Reg. Gilb. De frat. I. 2 John of Hexham, in ann. 1 142.

8 Roger died in 1139, Hoveden, Script, post Bed. p. 277, and the
foundation of Haverholm must have been about this time.

72 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

offered the ground to a colony of Cistercians, from
Fountains, but even they, apparently, found it too
wet, and removed to Louth Park. The Bishop
gave it to the nuns, " for the soul of King Henry,
and my uncle Roger, sometime Bishop of Salis-
bury." 1 The charter which contains Alexander's
gift makes it plain that by this time the nuns had
adopted a modified Cistercian rule ; for it says of
them that they follow "a strict life, a holy life ; the
life of the monks of Cistercian Order, as far as the
weakness of their sex allows." This probably
means that they adopted the unmitigated rule of
St. Benedict. Their rules were afterwards drawn
out definitely, and when this is noticed, it will
appear more clearly what this meant. So much
of the Cistercian rule consisted in manual labours,
quite inapplicable to females, that the conformity
of the life of Gilbert's nuns to the brethren of Citeaux
must have been the austerity of their mode of life,
and the use of meditation. The sisters of Semp-
ringham, though they washed and spun, and brewed,
yet, having been Gilbert's scholars, were learned
maidens, in their way ; for, when their numbers in-
creased, it was found necessary to prohibit the speak-
ing Latin amongst each other, which would, in fact,
have divided the convent into the learned and un-

1 In the year 1131, when we have placed the foundation of the
nunnery, there were very few Cistercian abbeys in France ; indeed,
the Abbey of Tard, in the diocese of Langres, is the only one of which
the foundation is certainly previous to that time. Juilly, it appears
certain, was a Benedictine dependency on Molesme. It is, therefore,
very unlikely that St. Gilbert should have begun so early to imitate
the Cistercians. The idea must have struck him from his increasing
intercourse with Cistercians.

SPREAD OF THE INSTITUTE 73

learned sisters. They had, therefore, more facili-
ties for spiritual reading, and for meditation, than
were common ; but for all that, it was a bold thing
to apply the rule of St. Benedict to delicate females,
in all the strictness in which St. Scholastica had
learned it from the lips of her brother. Nunneries
had degenerated both in England and France ; in
England they had not long ago been censured for
their splendid robes and secular apparel ; l and a
very few years later, the Council of Rheims com-
plained of the nuns, who lived irregularly, each on
her own property, without even keeping within
the precincts of the cloister.1 In this respect, the
good nuns, though they little suspected it, were re-
formers, when they were transported to their little
island of St. Mary, of Haverholm, where they had
nothing to look upon but their own green meadows
and cultivated land, and beyond, the little river,
running between its low banks, and the sluggish
waters of the marsh, shutting them out from the
world.

1 Council of London, 1139. 2 Geroch. ap. Baluz. vol. i. 204.

CHAPTER VI

GILBERT IN FRANCE

IT has taken but a short chapter to tell how, from
1131 to 1139, the Order, or rather the convent, of
Sempringham was increasing, and that it had sent
out a colony of nuns to Haverholm ; and it takes
but a few words to say, that from the foundation of
Haverholm to 1148, the fame of the sanctity of the
nuns spread far and wide, and that their numbers
still further increased, so that many noblemen gave
lands to Gilbert, wishing to have a convent built
near their own homes.1 Many things may have
occurred in these years of which we know nothing ;
at all events, Gilbert was growing old all the while ;
near twenty years are added to his life in that time.
Many things must have happened to him and to his
institute, but we need not regret the loss of them.
The less that monks and nuns are heard of the better.
They are the under-current in Church history ; they

1 It does not appear what convents were founded at this time. Bul-
lington is founded for nuns and clerks, and, therefore, was not built
till after Gilbert's return from France. Catteley, which is placed by
Dugdale in Stephen's time, as appears from the chart of foundation,
was not founded till Henry's II.'s reign. Ormesby and Sixhill, the
dates of which are unknown, may have been founded then, but the
fact most probably is, that the lands were given, but the monasteries
not founded, till after Gilbert had been to Clairvaux.

74

GILBERT IN FRANCE 75

need not appear on the surface, though their action
in the deep waters purifies the whole. They are, so
to speak, the moving element in the Church, whose
doctrine and hierarchy is one, and immovable ;
thus, they vary themselves, as the wants of the
Church vary. They are the reformers of the Church,
that is, of her children, when faith waxes cold ; the
pliant and elastic element, which takes a different
shape, according to the Proteus form of sin, which
it opposes. In the first fervour of their conversion
they work some great work ; they may afterwards
degenerate, but the work is done, and by the time
that they require reform, so, too, may the Church.
But all their work is done in secret, by contempla-
tion and prayer and penance ; and whenever they
make their appearance on the surface of society they
portend a storm. It was a schism in the Church
which called forth St. Bernard from his monastery,
and now that Gilbert goes to visit the great Abbot
of Clairvaux, the stormy part of his life is to begin.
But what takes him so far from his home when, for
so many years, he had remained in quiet at Semp-
ringham ? He must have been aroused indeed to
undertake it. And so he was ; what he had simply
begun, for the sake of seven maidens, whose hearts
God had filled with heavenly love, had now sprung
up into an institute, which he could no longer
manage alone. The very soul of the institute was
spiritual guidance, and the sisters were now so
numerous that he could not bear the burden by
himself. His friends, the Cistercians, had stood
him in good stead, and he determined to apply to
them, and to beg of them to take the institution

76 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

into their hands. Events were taking place at
Citeaux which made the year 1148 a favourable one
for his request ; and we will precede him, to take a
glimpse of the state of things on the Continent.

And first, where has St. Bernard been all this
while ? he has had other work to do, since by
God's grace, he restored unity to the Church and
placed Innocent II. on the papal throne. Many
events had taken place at Rome since that time ;
the turbulent nobles seem then to have been
broken, and a republican element now appears to
stir up that ever restless race. The cities of North-
ern Italy were aroused, and the dark storm from
the Apennines rolled its way on to Rome ; and this
time it was guided by a man well fitted by his talents
and his boldness to be the author of mischief.
Arnold of Brescia rapidly saw the theory which
would symbolise the new interests which thus stept
into the conflict, and he had a fiery enthusiasm and
eloquence which fitted him to be its herald. He
saw that the power of the bishops was irksome to
the citizens. All will recollect the part which
Milan took against its archbishop, Landulfus, in
the middle of the eleventh century, and how often
the same scenes were renewed in that turbulent
city. Arnold took up this feeling, and attacked the
prelates, many of whom, as was the case so often in
the empire, were secular princes as well as bishops.
Not that, he said, the churches of these bishops are
not the house of God, but the prelates themselves
are not bishops, and the people should not obey
them.1 He inveighed in strong terms against the

1 Geroch. ap. Gretser. vol. xii. Otto Frising. de Gest. Fred. ii. 21.

GILBERT IN FRANCE 77

secularity of the clergy, which was but too palpable,
and thus he was looked upon as a reformer. He
asserted that the spiritual and secular power are so
totally distinct, that they cannot possibly by any
means be joined. This doctrine is very like the
great truth, that the Kingdom of Christ is not of
this world, that is, that the Church of Christ has a
power of her own, totally independent of, and above
any earthly jurisdiction ; and it has deceived many
since Arnold's time. He appealed to the ancient
feelings of the Italian republics, and made them
fiercer by giving them a seemingly religious direc-
tion. His doctrines spread southward ; and though
he himself was obliged to fly to France, yet they
raised a sedition in Rome, and Innocent's last days
were embittered by the news that the Romans had
re-established the senate and revolted from his
authority. In the time of Celestine, his successor,
they deposed the Prefect of the city, an officer
virtually appointed by the Pope, though nominally
also by the Emperor : and established an officer
whom they called a patrician, probably from some
notion which they had of the connection of the title
with the time of the Eastern empire. A more ter-
rible event soon followed ; Lucius, the successor of
Celestine, died from a wound received in attempting
to quell an insurrection, and thus the blood of a
successor of St. Peter, lay at the door of this in-
fatuated and degraded people. It was at this time,
that the mock senate of Rome determined to claim
the right of assenting to the nomination of the
Supreme Pontiff, in other words, as the representa-
tive of the people, it wished to restore the election

78 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

to what it was before Innocent II.'s time.1 The
cardinals were aware of this, and suddenly and
hastily they met to elect the successor of St. Peter.
The choice which they made astonished Christen-
dom, when it was announced that they had elected
Bernard, Abbot of St. Anastasius, a Cistercian con-
vent near Rome, a man of blameless life and gentle
manners, but apparently of little talents, and above
all, not a member of the college of cardinals. They
seem, in their alarm at the dreadful event which
had just happened, to have determined on electing
one not of their own body, for it was the rule of an
ecclesiastical aristocracy that the Romans hated,
and they pitched in their fright on the first eligible
person of whom they could think. The finger of
God was not the less observable in the whole trans-
action, for Eugenius III. had been a monk of Clair-
vaux, and St. Bernard's influence began at once to
be felt in the Church. The pontificate of Eugenius
was an epoch in the Church ; he came just before
the age of rescripts, and appeals, and canonists ; 2
and the broad principles laid down by St. Bernard
of course influenced the practice of the papal
courts, and, therefore, tended to modify the doc-
trine concerning appeals as laid down by Alexander
III. Again, secular prelates soon began to feel a
new influence in the court of Rome, proof against
riches and magnificence.3 The cardinals them-

1 Vid. Life of St. Stephen Harding, in vol. i. p. 198.

2 On the law of rescripts, see appendix to the third Lateran Council
ap. Mansi, p. xxxi. As to appeals, ibid. p. x. and compare. St. Bern,
de Cons. lib. iii. c. 2. The canon law is said to have been compiled
by Gratian, about A.D. 1150.

3 John of Salisbury bears witness to the purity of Eugenius's adminis-
tration.— Vid. Ciacconi, Vit. Eug. III.

GILBERT IN FRANCE 79

selves were not slow in complaining of Gallican
influence, and had it not been for St. Bernard's
meekness, a schism might have separated France
from Italy.1 His election, however, was unani-
mous ; out of his Abbey they fetched this lowly and
shame-faced monk, who had washed the dishes at
Clairvaux ; they took the spade and the reaping-
hook out of his hand, and put the scarlet mantle
over his white Cistercian habit, and in solemn
procession enthroned him in the Lateran. All at
once a change came over this simple monk ;
an unflinching firmness appeared in the sweet-
mannered brother, who, not long before, had found
his Abbey of St. Anastasius too much for his sick
soul, and had longed for the forest and the cavern ;
he even showed a talent for business, which none
had seen before his mysterious elevation. This,
too, was totally apart from the influence of the
Abbot of Clairvaux. St. Bernard's soul sunk within
him at the news. " God forgive you, what have ye
done ? " he writes to the cardinals. " Had ye no
wise and practical men among you that ye have
elevated a man in a pauper's garb ? It is either an
absurdity or a miracle." He knew well the poor
brother of Clairvaux, and thought him totally unfit
to sit in St. Peter's chair. He, therefore, did not
even write to him till urged to do so by his friends.
Eugenius had need of all the qualities which now
appeared in him ; Arnold of Brescia was in Rome,
now clad in monkish garb and fresh from the

1 St. Bernard's letter to the cardinals on Eugenius's election, shows
a doubt how far they would support him. For the discontent of the
cardinals, v. Otto Frisin. de Gest. Frid. i. 57.

8o ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

lessons of Abelard ; seditions were raised and
cardinals' palaces burnt, not now by the nobles,
for the Frangipani l were now on the Pope's side,
but by the populace. The fiery monk had dazzled
them with visions of old Rome, and they had
dreams of the Senate, the Equestrian Order, and
the Capitol. Here was the old secular empire
springing up in a grotesque form ; a wild mixture
of the Gracchi, Julius Caesar, and Constantine.2
Added to this, the germs of those miserable revolu-
tions of which the Emperor Frederick afterwards
took advantage, were desolating the north of Italy ;
and an impatience of ecclesiastical rule had sprung
up, which now broke out in the open maltreatment
of bishops and archbishops in the north, just as the
cardinals had suffered at Rome.3 Eugenius paci-
fied the north of Italy, but Rome was as yet beyond
his power ; he was ultimately obliged to cross the
Alps.

It was during this journey that Gilbert saw his
holiness, and was brought in contact with a series
of events which would look like romance, if history
did not assure us of their truth. They are the out-
bursts of the young life of a Christian people, before
scepticism had touched the purity of their faith ;
while at the same time there come across us out-
bursts of wickedness at times almost ludicrous in
its waywardness, and at other times terrible from
its marring the good which God had prepared for
Christendom. But most wonderful of all are they

1 Otto Frisin. de Gest. Frid. i. 28.

2 Vid. Letter of the Roman people to Conrad. — Otto Frisin. Ibid.

3 Pet. Yen. Ep. iv. 37.

GILBERT IN FRANCE 81

from the predominant influence of St. Bernard,
whom God had raised up to guide His Church
amidst the dangers which surrounded her. It is
refreshing to see a man, in a poor habit, riding at
the side of kings and emperors, and guiding all
things, simply because he is Christ's servant. At
the time that Eugenius entered France, Louis was
about to set out on the crusade which had been
undertaken on the alarming news of the taking of
Edessa. A great Parliament1 had been held at
Etampes to elect the regent during the King's
absence ; St. Bernard was in the midst of the circle
of bishops and barons, and when their delibera-
tions were over, he came forward at the head of
them, and said to the king, " Behold, here are
thy two swords." The one was the great Suger, the
other the Count of Nevers. Both refused the office ;
the Count fled away and took the vows in a Car-
thusian monastery, but Suger was persuaded by St.
Bernard to accept the charge. This event alone
tended more than any other to consolidate the
French monarchy, and prepare the way for Philip
Augustus and St. Louis. This was on Septua-
gesima Sunday ; a little before Easter, Louis went
to meet Eugenius at Dijon. When the royal pro-
cession approached, those around Eugenius cried
out, " The King, the King ; " but Eugenius sat un-
moved, and when Louis came near with his train
of nobles, he leaped off his horse and kissed the
Pope's foot with tears of joy, thus doing homage to
Christ in the person of his earthly representative.

1 Magnum colloquium,
VOL. IV. F

82 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

Then Eugenius raised him up and embraced him.
Strange times were these, when religion was thus
honoured, and St. Mary's prophecy had come to
pass, and the strong things of the world had fallen
down before the weak. It was this that passed
through the mind of Eugenius when he embraced
Louis, and remembered his own lowly origin, and
said, that God indeed had raised the simple out of
the mire, reminding the king also, that he, a monk
of Clairvaux, had worked in the kitchen with Henry
of France, Louis's brother. And yet, the times had
their strange caprices too, for not long after, when
the Pope went to celebrate in solemn procession
at St. Genevieve, the attendants of the canons
quarrelled with those of the Pope, and they fought
with their fists with such fury, that even King Louis,
in attempting to separate the combatants, suffered
in the fray.1 On Easter day, in the Abbey of St.
Denis, in the presence of Eugenius, Louis received
the Oriflamme from the altar ; all the great barons
of the realm were about him, and all the chivalry
of France, with the Knight-templars in their white
cloaks, and all wore the cross to show that they
were on their way to rescue the Holy Sepulchre.
This was a day of joy, but alas ! how few of that
brilliant array ever saw again the shores of France.
By the side of Louis sat his lovely and fascinating
queen, with all her damsels around her ; it had
been well if she had been left behind, for God, on
account of the sins of the host, would not allow
them to rescue the Holy City. This, however,
none could foresee on that happy Easter day.

1 Baronius in ann. 1147.

GILBERT IN FRANCE 83

After their departure, St. Bernard had other work
to do ; and let not the reader be impatient to meet
Gilbert at Citeaux. The delay will enable him the
better to understand the course of events. That
sect which afterwards became the Albigenses, and
in that form threatened to undermine the whole
Church, had attracted the vigilant eye of Eugenius.
As it first appears to us, it takes the simple shape
of an inveterate hatred of all mystery, with an
especial dislike of churchmen, and church autho-
rity. Its apostle was a runaway monk called
Henry, a sort of impure and inferior Arnold of
Brescia. Peter1 the Venerable considered the
heresy to have come from among the wild and
ignorant inhabitants of the Alpine valleys ; but
he soon found to his wonder that it had spread
into the fair plains of Provence. There, in this
luxurious and half-Moorish country, it met another
element, a subtle Manicheism, and this compound
of vice, disobedience, and error, was the Albigen-
sian heresy.2 The licentious soldiery3 cared but
little for theological disputes, but understood too
well the value of license not to profess themselves
Henricians ; and the infatuated people burned
crucifixes, profaned the churches, flogged priests,
and imprisoned monks, or compelled them to
marry. The only way in which this terrible and

1 Pet. Ven. contr. Petrob. bibl. Clun. p. 1122.

2 St. Bernard, In Cant. Serm. 66, connects a similar set of heretics
with the Manichees from the similarity of their doctrines, though
ignorant of their historical origin. Evervinus, in his letter to the Saint,
distinguishes two sets of heretics, one much more doctrinal than the
other. — Vid. St. Bern. ed. Ben. vol. i. 1489.

3 Ep. Goffr. ap. S. Bernardi op. ed. Ben. vol. ii. p. 1195.

84 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

spreading evil could be met, was by sending mis-
sionaries to preach in this centre itself of heresy.
St. Bernard himself was sent with Alberic, Cardinal
Bishop of Ostia. The Cardinal preceded him, and
arrived at Albi, the stronghold of the heretics, two
days before him ; but the people had but little
reverence for cardinals and legates of the Holy See ;
a short distance from the city, Alberic was met by a
quaint procession of men mounted on asses, and
women playing on cymbals ; and when the bells of
the church rung for mass, not thirty of the faithful
attended. When St. Bernard arrived, the city
poured out of the gates to meet him ; the coun-
tenance and figure of the Saint struck them at once,
and the fickle people received him with shouts of
joy. But St. Bernard looked upon them sternly,
and they saw no more of him that day. The
morrow was the feast of St. Peter, and the great
church was crowded with people, so that some of
them were compelled to stand outside the porch.
St. Bernard looked around on the upturned visages
beneath, and said, " I had come to sow good seed,
but I find the ground already sown with corrupt
seed. But now will I detail to you each kind of
seed, see ye which ye will have." He then drew out
the Catholic faith side by side with that of Henry.
There was no need of premise and conclusion ;
arguments would have been thrown away on the
people of Albi. The juxtaposition was enough ; a
thrill ran through the whole assembly, and when
St. Bernard asked them which seed they would
choose, the hearts of the people were already won
back to the Church. "Do penance then," said the

GILBERT IN FRANCE 85

holy Abbot, " as many of you as are polluted, and
return to the unity of the Church of Christ : " and he
bade them hold up their hands in token of Catholic
unity ; and all with joy raised up their right hands
to heaven. And this, says the faithful monk, who
was an eye-witness of this scene, in his letter
written to Clairvaux, is to be preferred to all his
other miracles. He went everywhere from place
to place preaching the Word of God, and before he
had left the country, heresy had everywhere fled
before his face. He afterwards addressed them
letters full of tenderness, and the remembrance of
his visit for some time kept heresy under. If this
corrupt people had continued to remember the
good abbot who had ventured among them in their
wildest mood, how much blood and misery would
have been spared ; but at all events, St. Bernard
stopped for a time this miserable evil, which
afterwards threatened the very existence of Chris-
tendom. Alas ! a few favourable circumstances, a
corrupt court and a corrupt clergy, and the old and
mysterious Manicheism of the country, produced
an open heresy in the south of France, but there
were all over Europe, men who hated the Church
because she came across their plans or their vices,
and who took advantage of the cowardice or world-
liness of churchmen to oppress her ; and so it ever
will be till the end of time. But God raises up His
Saints to the help of His Bride, and it is pleasing
amidst the melancholy picture, to follow the steps
of such a man as St. Bernard.

We are now fast approaching Citeaux, where we
are again to meet Gilbert, and where he is to

86 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

meet St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius. St. Bernard
probably left the south of France in the autumn
of 1147; soon after which Eugenius determined to
visit again the scenes in which he had passed the
happiest days of life. The general chapter of
Citeaux took place as usual on the i4th of
September. Hither also came Gilbert, after so
many years, in which he hardly crossed the bounds
of the parish of Sempringham ; he now found
himself in the midst of the most august assembly
in Christendom, in the company of the first men
of the day.1 More than three hundred abbots of
the Cistercian Order were sitting around, with the
head of Christendom in the midst. St. Stephen
had long since been gathered to his rest, and his
successor, Rainaldus, presided over the chapter.
St. Bernard was there now in the decline of life,
with an enfeebled body and an untired soul, the
centre of the affairs not only of the Order, but of
the whole of the Christian world. He indeed was
unconscious, except when at times it came across
him, that men did think a great deal of him; and
it puzzled him much, " for how could so many
great men be wrong ? " and yet it was true that he

1 There seems every reason to suppose that this chapter at Citeaux
was in 1147. It appears from a document quoted in Pagi's notes to
Baronius, torn. xix. p. 4, that he was there on the i8th of that month ;
and he could not have been there again next year, as Pagi and
Muratori suppose, because he had left France in June, and the chapter
was always in September. Again, Goffridus, in his life of St. Bernard,
seems to imply, that it was in the same year that he entered France,
cum introiset Gallias — eodem anno apud Cistercium affuit. Vit. S.
Bern. iv. 7. His visit to Clairvaux, however, took place next year,
for it is expressly stated to have been after the Council of Rheims.
Ibid. ii. 8.

GILBERT IN FRANCE 87

was an unprofitable servant.1 Thus he spoke to
his friends in private, and there he was with all
eyes upon him, yet too much intent on God to
know it. Gilbert was not the only stranger who
came with ^his petition ; for another comes with a
similar request. He is a man of quaint figure and
uncomely features : his stature is short, and his
plain face is furrowed everywhere with deep
wrinkles.2 When he smiles, he twists his body
and raises his shoulders up to his head in a strange
way ; but his eyes are piercing, and seem to look
through those who speak with him ; and altogether
his face was not unpleasing, for, though emaciated
and hard-featured from exposure to the air, the
countenance had a strange mixture of sweetness
and sternness. This was Stephen, who had lately
established a double monastery at Obazina, in the
diocese of Limoges, not far from Tulles. It was
a wild glen, through which ran a small stream,
and all around it was a thick wood, and high
rocks, through which flowed a larger stream,
called Courreze ; the monastery itself was built on
a jutting rock, round the base of which rolled the
clear waters of the rapid river. It was a rough
place, and yet the abbot externally was as rough
a man. His ^discipline was stern ; if one of the
novices but dropped his book, he received a box
on the ear, which sounded through the church.
One Saturday evening, the monks who had
had charge of the bakehouse, after compline, when
all were in bed, felt so happy that their week was
over, that they became unusually merry. They

1 Vit. St. Bern. v. 12. 2 Baluz. Misc. vol. i. p. 169.

88 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

were tilting at each other with sticks, and amusing
themselves, when all of a sudden they espied the dark
figure of the abbot, who had come up unawares,
and had been watching their proceedings. The
poor monks immediately took to flight, knowing well
what a severe punishment would ensue, and next
day they took care to accuse themselves of this fault
before another rose to be beforehand with them, and
Stephen seeing their fright by their pale faces and
haggard countenances, saw that they had already
suffered enough,and excused them. And yet Stephen
had a gentle heart ; he wept with those whom he
saw were frightened at his severe discipline, and
would not allow them to pine away. The nobles of
the country were cruel and tyrannical, men who
oppressed the poor, and before these steel-clad
ruffians would Stephen stand in his coarse black
habit, in behalf of the wretched. Once a whole
country-side was desolated by a baron, because
another noble, to whom the ground belonged, had
made away with a favourite hawk ; Stephen goes to
the baron, and promises to find the hawk if he will
but go away in peace. Then Stephen set out in the
depth of winter, on foot, to the nobleman's castle,
and when he got there, was refused admittance, as
might have been expected ; then he trudged back
in the snow, discouraged, but not in despair. He
soon set out again in the same quest, and by God's
help, he was at this time successful, and he came
back with the beautiful hawk upon his wrist, and
restored it to its owner. At another time when a
fearful insurrection of the peasantry against their
lords left the fields uncultivated, and a famine

GILBERT IN FRANCE 89

ensued, he fed thousands at the gates of the abbey.
He now came to put his monastery under the Cis-
tercian rule ; his fame had come before him, and
Pope Eugenius himself presented him to the lord
Abbot of Citeaux, and Rainaldus in turn presented
him to the Chapter, with an eulogium, which was
very complimentary to his piety, but by no means
so to his personal appearance. He took him by the
band, and said, " See my lords and brethren, here is
an abbot, little in body, short in stature, contemp-
tible in garb, ugly in face ; but, whatever there is of
him, be assured is full of the Holy Ghost, and of
faith." He then named his request, and the Pope's
recommendation to the abbots ; at first they mur-
mured, for it was against the rule of the Order to
receive a community of women. But when Rain-
ildus promised that this should be remedied, they
:ould not refuse a request, backed by the Pope's
authority, and the monastery of Obazina was re-
ceived into the filiation of Citeaux. The Cistercians
were right in accepting the rule of this monastery,
for they improved it by their government. It par-
took of the rude and almost humorous simplicity
Df Stephen himself. The poor nuns in their sim-
plicity, when they looked on their glen and the
~ocky mountains which bounded it, believed that
ill the world with its cities and magnificent towns
lay just outside the woody mountain tops. Boys
under five years old were brought up in the con-
sent of the nuns, and were then removed into that
Df the monks. As one little boy was crossing, under
the guidance of a monk, the steep path between
the two monasteries, the brother asked him how he

9o ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

liked the women with whom he had been living.
" Women !" said the child; "I have never seen any
women. Those with whom I have been living were
called sisters." And this child was a type of the
rude simplicity and unreasoning purity of the mon-
asteries now delivered into the hands of Citeaux.

So far Gilbert's mission seemed to prosper ; a
double monastery had been received into the order
of Citeaux. He had an audience of Pope Eugenius,
and laid his case before him. The Pope was much
interested in him ; he wanted news from England,
for the Church was in a miserable state in a country
torn with civil war, in which churches and abbeys
were turned into fortresses, and the clergy were
mercilessly laid under contributions. What was
worse, the bishops themselves had but too often
turned soldiers, and with their armed bands harried
the poor peasants, and plundered the fruit of their
lands. The Bishop of Hereford alone is praised as
being a courageous defender of the Church's rites.
Besides all this, the conduct of Stephen gave Euge-
nius much cause for alarm. He and his uncle,
Henry of Winchester, were in no good odour at
Rome, since the new order of things under the rule
of Eugenius.1 The Pope had therefore deprived
Henry of the legatine office, and had transferred
it to Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury. St.
Bernard was evidently aiming at purifying the
English Church of secular prelates. But a short
time before, at Paris, he had procured the deposition
from the See of York of Stephen's nephew and
nominee, the same to whom God afterwards gave

1 John of Hexham, in ann. 1147.

GILBERT IN FRANCE 91

grace to become St. William. All this made the
presence of Gilbert most interesting to Eugenius,
and he soon learned to love his simplicity and quiet
energy. When, however, Gilbert talked to him
about giving up the conduct of his Order to the
Cistercians, he found him and the chapter decidedly
averse to it. The Order would not undertake the
government of a female convent. In the case of
Obazina, it was possible to separate them, but at
Sempringham, the very object of the institute was
the spiritual direction of nunneries, and the one
could not exist without the other. The chapter
therefore altogether declined Gilbert's offer. This
was a sad disappointment to him, for the anxious
charge was still upon his shoulders, and he knew
not how to bear it. The only thing to be done was
to associate other priests with him in the govern-
ment of the nunnery. He did not yet go back to
Sempringham ; the events of this year of his life
are obscurely told, but it appears incidentally that he
remained in France the greater part of the year
H48.1 His charge was now becoming more
anxious than ever, and he probably remained be-
hind to learn the rule of the canons of St. Augustine,
for he now determined to join to each convent of
his order a certain number of canons, who were
to be the spiritual guides of the nuns.2 At this
time in Burgundy, in the same province as Citeaux,

1 He was at the general chapter of Citeaux, in September 1 147, and
he was also at Clairvaux, when St. Malachi arrived four or five days
before St. Luke's day, 1148. He may indeed have gone back to
England, and made another journey to France, but his biographer only
mentions one journey.

2 Geroch. ap. Baluz. Misc, ii, 207.

92 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

the canons of St. Maurice had been reformed ;
again, instead of the turbulent secular canons of
St. Genevieve, those of St. Victor were gradually
substituted ; and the year before, in his journey
to Toulouse, St. Bernard had, by his burning
words, converted the unruly clerks of the cathedral
of Bordeaux, who for seven years had under-
gone the sentence of excommunication rather
than become canons regular.1 And much need
had the cathedrals of reform, for in many places
the old discipline had gone out, and the canons
were living as they pleased, in houses of their own,
having entirely given up the old monastic principle ;
and they boldly maintained that the rule of Aix-la-
Chapelle had tacitly allowed this disorder.2 But
a general feeling was growing up against this
practice, and Eugenius therefore warmly approved
of Gilbert's plan. These were happy days for
Gilbert, which he spent with St. Bernard, who
loved him well. Eugenius too loved him, and said,
that if he had but known him before, he would
have nominated him to the See of York. This was
a fortunate escape for Gilbert, for often must
Henry Murdach have regretted the cloister of
Fountains, after he had been consecrated by the
hands of the Pope himself at Treves. His pallium
hung heavy about his neck, when he found himself
opposed to Stephen and his son Eustace, petulant,
so thought Cardinal Gregory,3 as the goat, without

1 Goff. Epist. vit. St. Bern. lib. vi. ad fin.

2 Geroch. p. 223. This must be what the author means by the rule
of King Louis.

3 St. Thomas, Ep. 4. 14.

GILBERT IN FRANCE 93

the nobleness of the lion. Gilbert found that he
had weight enough to bear in the rule of his own
Order, for which he was now preparing, and which
Pope Eugenius formally conferred upon him before
he left France. Probably Gilbert was at Clairvaux,
when Eugenius, on his way back to turbulent Italy,
came to take a last look at that place where he had
first known peace, and had spent so many happy
days. He must needs see St. Bernard and Clair-
vaux, before he again crossed the Alps, never to
see them more. As he wound along with his suite,
the narrowing valley, where he had so often borne
the heat and cold as a common labourer, the
great bell of the abbey rung, and all the brethren
assembled in the choir ; then the whole convent
came out to meet him, St. Bernard first, with his
pastoral staff, and the novices last, two and two.
Then when he came to the abbey gates, all knelt
before him, and when they rose, St. Bernard gave
him holy water, and kissed his hand, and then with
chanting, all passed into the abbey. Eugenius
wept abundantly, and when he spoke to the monks,
telling them that he was their fellow and brother,
his words were broken by sobs. He wore the
white cuculla day and night, as the rule pre-
scribed, and under the rich purple hangings and
embroidered coverlet of his bed, was the common
straw pallet of the Order. His suite was too large
to allow him to remain long at Clairvaux, and with
a sad heart he set out again to cross the Alps.

Before he left Clairvaux, Gilbert saw another
illustrious personage. This was St. Malachi ; he
came all the way from the north of Ireland, hoping

94 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

to see Eugenius at Clairvaux, but when he arrived,
five days before the feast of St. Luke, he found that
the Pope had gone away, and was even then not
far from Rome. King Stephen had detained him,
with his usual obstinacy ; he was afraid of Rome,
and would not surfer any bishop to cross the sea
to the Council of Rheims. The Archbishop of
Canterbury alone contrived to cross the Channel in
a crazy vessel, but when he returned from France,
Stephen drove him into exile, and could only be
brought to reason by laying an interdict on his lands.
It was a part of this quarrel which prevented St.
Malachi from reaching Clairvaux in time to see the
Pope, then on the point of leaving France. His
had been a long and a weary life, for he had been
the reformer of the Irish church. With a handful of
brethren he had renewed the old monastery of Ben-
chor, and had built up a church of wood, which St.
Bernard calls " a work of the Scots, and handsome
enough." He had had hard work among wild
Irish chieftains and their clans ; once he narrowly
escaped martyrdom ; their savage eyes glared at
him for a moment, but his presence disarmed them,
and he, who was to give the signal, durst not do it.
His was the most unruly diocese in Christendom ;
it had been for nine generations an appanage of a
chieftain's family ; eight had successively borne the
title and swayed the power of the Metropolitan See,
being all the while no more than laymen. The last
archbishop was a married man, but he was really
consecrated, and on his deathbed, by his wife,
he sent his crosier to St. Malachi. He left him an
heritage of toil ; on foot, with a few clerks, he

GILBERT IN FRANCE 95

braved the bitter cold, the deep bogs, and the rough
roads of his country ; and what was far worse, he
battled with his half-heathen countrymen. He had
to put down savage customs, unbridled concubin-
age, and lawless men chafing sorely at an ecclesi-
astical yoke. The first stone church which the
Saint built raised an outburst of barbarian fury ;
they said that their bishop had turned Frenchman,
and had ceased to be a true-hearted Scot, with his
new-fangled architecture.1 At length he had seen
the fruits of his toilsome life ; Church and State had
been reformed by him ; the civil law had taken the
place of savage customs ; churches \vere rebuilt,
and priests ordained ; confirmation was adminis-
tered, and matrimony enforced. Innocent II. had
delayed giving him the pall of an archbishop on
account of some informality ; but to make amends
he took his mitre off his own head and put it upon
the head of St. Malachi. He had now come to
Clairvaux to receive the pall from the hands of
Eugenius. Some of his clergy had accompanied
him down to the sea-shore, and made him promise
to come back to Ireland, and had watched him with
straining eyes embark on board his vessel. He did
fulfil his promise, for contrary winds drove him
back to Ireland, but they never saw his face again.
He had always wished to die at Clairvaux, in the
arms of his friend St. Bernard, and now he was to
have his wish, for the days in which Gilbert was
with him were the last that he spent upon earth.
St. Bernard vividly describes the joy of this inter-

i Callus non Scotus. St. Bern. Vit. St. Malachise. St. Bernard
calls him only bishop, because he had not received the pallium.

96 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

course. " How joyous a holiday dawned upon us
when he came into Clairvaux ! With how quick
and bounding a step, did I, though infirm and
trembling, run to meet him ! With what joy did I
rush to kiss him ! With what joyful arms did I
embrace this grace sent me from heaven ! And
then what joyful days did I pass with him, and yet
how few ! " It was in these last days that Gilbert
saw him, and he was admitted to a familiar inter-
course with these great Saints. He was not how-
ever present at the closing scene of the life of
St. Malachi. It was now high time that he should
return home ; and at the latter end of October,
he set out to go back to Sempringham. Both
St. Bernard and St. Malachi loved him well ; 1 each
of them gave him his staff, that he might take a
memorial of them back to England ; and St. Bernard
gave him a stole and a maniple. He went on his
way to the work which had been appointed for him;
there was still a great deal for him to do on earth ;
but on the second of November, All Souls' Day, St.
Malachi died, and was buried in St. Mary's Chapel
at Clairvaux.

1 Gilbert's biographer says, that he alone was present when the two
Saints, by their prayers, worked a miracle, but what it was is unknown.

CHAPTER VII

THE CANONS OF SEMPRINGHAM

THERE were many persons ready to welcome Gil-
bert when he got back to England ; all who, before
he went to France, were anxious to give portions of
ground to endow a monastery of his institute, were
more than ever disposed to assist him now that St.
Bernard's name was added to his own.1 In the two
years after his return he must have been wholly
occupied in founding houses of his Order ; Alex-
ander of Lincoln died before he left England, but
Robert de Chesney, his successor, was blamed by
his historian for injuring the revenues of his diocese
by his liberality to the Order of Sempringham, so
much did he love Gilbert and his institute.2 Nay,
when Chicksand had been founded by the Countess
of Albemarle for the Gilbertines, and she was living
there with her nuns, news was brought her that her
son was dead, and that his kinsmen, without con-
sulting her, were bearing his body to Walden
Priory. In her frantic grief she ordered a band of
armed men to bring the body by force to her, at

1 Innocent III., in a Bull of Confirmation addressed to the Priory of
Alvingham, says, that the Order was instituted by "the holy Gilbert
and the blessed Bernard." — Monast. Angl. vii. 961.

2 Wharton, Ang. Sac. ii. 417.

VOL. IV. 97 G

98 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

Chicksand, that it might lie in the church of the
nuns ; and had not the knights who accompanied
the body ridden by the side of the coffin with drawn
swords, it would have been carried away. The
enthusiasm for the Gilbertine Order spread beyond
Lincolnshire, and the immediate neighbourhood of
Sempringham, into Yorkshire, where two houses
were founded in 1150, Watton and Malton. The
first priory founded was that of Sempringham itself;
and Gilbert of Ghent gave the land on which the
house was built.1 "The nobles of England," says
his biographer, " earls and barons, seeing and ap-
proving the work of the Lord, gave to the holy
father Gilbert many lands and possessions ; first in
so doing was Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, and
lastly, King Henry II." Many of these monasteries
were situated in Lincolnshire, in solitary islands
formed by rivers, and among the reeds and willows
of the marshy grounds. Gilbert's name was known
all over England; he appears in the chronicles of the
time side by side with kings and princes. William
of Newbridge mentions him as a man " really won-
derful, and of singular skill in the direction of
females, conscious of his own purity, and relying
on grace from on high," and his name was men-
tioned with reverence in the holiest cloisters. St.
Aelred preached of him to his monks, and called
him " the holy father Gilbert, a man venerable and
to be mentioned with the highest honour." 2 The

1 Gilbert did not give the land free of service ; his descendant,
another Gilbert, gave it in eleemosynam, i.e. free ecclesiastical tenure.
For an explanation of the term see Constitutions of Clarendon, c. 9,
where it is opposed to laicus feudus.

2 St. Aelred, Sermon 2, in Isaise cap. xiv.

CANONS OF SEMPRINGHAM 99

contemporaries of Gilbert must have been conscious
of some substantial benefit derived from him, who
was to all appearance only a retiring and simple
parish priest ; for many years after he came back
from France he was not even a monk, and had not
received the habit at the time of which we are
writing. And this reverence is the more remark-
able, because it continued after his death, soon after
which his Order degenerated ; nay, it showed the
germs of this degeneracy even in his lifetime.
Now that the institute has, by the addition of the
canons, attained its perfection, it will be right to
give a more minute account of it. We shall then
see what was the benefit which the world owed to
Gilbert, notwithstanding the partial failure of his
work.

The peculiarity of the Order consisted in the
institution of a certain number of canons to be the
spiritual guides of nuns. Among the Premon-
strants there were nuns as well as canons, but then
the nuns were an after-thought ; while in the case
of the White Gilbertines, as they were called, the
original institute began with the religious women,
and all the rest grew up around them, and were
established for their use. In Gilbert's original
intention, every house of nuns was to have seven
canons connected with it, who were to be the
directors of the nuns ; so that every Gilbertine
priory consisted in fact of three monasteries, one
for nuns, another of canons, and a third of lay-
brethren. This mode of government had, in a
manner, been forced upon him since the Cistercians
refused to help him. The great problem in mon-

ioo ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

astic government was the jurisdiction to which
they were to submit. This was met, as has been
said elsewhere, by the formation of congregations,
first the Cluniac, and then the Cistercian.1 If this
was necessary in the case of monks, it was much
more indispensable in nunneries. A convent of
women is necessarily dependent on men for the
administration of the sacraments ; they must, there-
fore, necessarily be under external direction ; and
in the choice of it should not be left to their own
caprice. The want of external discipline had ruined
many a nunnery. A number of houses were to be
found, the inmates of which, calling themselves
Canonesses, could give very little account of them-
selves, and were really relaxed nuns of the Order of
St. Benedict.2 As late as the twelfth century
Councils were forced to take notice of nuns who
wore rich furs, of sables, martens, and ermine,
whose fingers were covered with rings of gold, and
their long tresses curled or platted ; another speaks
of disorderly nuns, who, while they ought to sleep
and take their meals together in a dormitory and
refectory, lived each in their own house without
any restraint, and receiving whom she would.3
Such nunneries as these were really nothing more
than alms-houses for unmarried wromen. The idea
of the Gilbertine Order was to obviate this difficulty,
by joining to the nunneries an order of canons for
the spiritual direction of the nuns.
•

1 Life of St. Stephen, p. 155.

2 Helyot, Ordres Mon. vol. ii. p. 58.

3 Council of London, 1139, second Lateran Council. Vid. Geroch.
quoted above, p. 59, and Council of Rheims.

CANONS OF SEMPRINGHAM 101

Females require direction in a different way from
men. It is the unruly intellect of man which leads
him into error, while a woman errs from dis-
organised affections and untamed feelings ; and,
what is most pitiable to think upon, often those
who aim highest, have the most terrible and signal
fall. She who moves along the beaten path of life
without being either very good or very bad, is in
little danger of fanaticism ; while she who is placed
above ordinary ties and affections, and strives to
fix her desires on God alone, finds at once a class
of temptations of which others have no conception.
The devil placed before our Lord temptations so
subtle that we can hardly tell the meaning of them,
or discover how it would have been sin to yield to
them. Again, in the unfathomable mystery of
those words, " My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken me ? " spoken upon the cross by Him who
was Very God, it is possible to gather that the soul,
most closely united to God, may be deprived of the
consciousness of His presence in an incompre-
hensible way. All these are temptations, pressing
upon the highest souls, of a kind quite different
from those which beset the path of commonplace
Christians. And to withstand these it requires an
implicit faith, and an utter resignation of the will,
which very few possess. Hence, the wild and
terrible forms of fanaticism which have appeared
from time to time in persons who, with proper
guidance, might have been Sisters of Charity or
contemplative nuns. On the other hand, by the
sweet and gentle ways of holy obedience, a
character is formed of a nature distinct from

102 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

any other, and which no austerities can alone
bestow. Of course, God in His mercy can guide
peaceful and holy souls through any difficulties,
even without these aids, but it is dangerous to be
without them, for who can stand in the hour of
trial when it comes across the soul that after all
she may be contemplating herself instead of God,
and all her feelings may be illusion ? A gentle
voice is needed to bid the soul wait in darkness
till God give her light, as He assuredly will do,
sooner or later.

On the other hand, corresponding to these trials,
there are joys in contemplation which ordinary
souls cannot know. They are described by those
who have felt them with a substantive clearness,
which shows even to those who have never felt
them, that there is a deep philosophy in the cross
which simple and crucified souls can know, but
which is beyond the reach of the mere student,
however learned he may be. We are so tied
down to things of sense that we can only aim
at immaterial and invisible things through sensible
objects ; spiritual things can only be discerned by
spirit, and therefore can but be understood by us
indirectly, till our bodies, after the blessed resurrec-
tion, become spiritual. But it is possible to con-
ceive that there is a way of seeing the invisible,
analogous to, and yet totally distinct in kind from,
the perceptions of sense ; and for a short time, and
in a small degree, God has vouchsafed such an
opening of the invisible world to His Saints on
earth. Few, indeed, there are, to whom such a
grace is given, but there are many states short of

CANONS OF SEMPRINGHAM 103

this to which more ordinary souls may attain,
remembering, all the while, that of the highest,
as well as the lowest, charity is the essence, and
that which alone gives them value. Obedience
to authority, which comes to us in the place of
God, and humility, are the steps by which the
Holy Spirit thus exalts souls dead to the world
and to themselves. It was to produce in the
soul these virtues that the Gilbertine canons were
instituted, and what were the general results of
the system may be gathered from one case which
is confessedly an extraordinary one. " In one of
the monasteries," says St. Aelred, " which, under
the venerable Father Gilbert, are daily sending up
to heaven plentiful fruits of chastity, there was
once, and perhaps may be still, a holy virgin, and
she had so expelled from her breast all love of the
world and carnal affections, all care for bodily wants
and outward anxiety, that with a burning soul she
loathed earthly things, and longed after heavenly.
And sometimes it happened, that when her mind
was occupied in her wonted prayer, a mysteri-
ous and wondrous sweetness would come over
her and put an end to all the movements of the
soul, to all quick-coming thoughts, nay, even all
those spiritual thoughts which concerned her
friends. Then her soul, in a manner bidding adieu
to all worldly burdens, would be rapt above itself ;
it would be caught up by a strange ineffable and
incomprehensible light, so that it saw nothing else
but That which is, and which is the being of all.
Nor was this a bodily light or any likeness of a
bodily thing ; it was not extended nor shed abroad,

104 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

so that it could be seen everywhere ; without being
contained itself, it contained all things, and that
in a wonderful and ineffable manner, just as Being
contains all that is, and truth whatever is true.
When, therefore, this light was shed around her,
then she began to know Christ no longer after the
flesh, for the breath of her nostrils, Christ Jesus,
had led her into the truth itself. After lying a
considerable time in this trance, the sisters could
only with difficulty bring her back to her bodily
senses, by shaking her. This happened several
times, and they entreated her to explain what took
place in these trances. Then began the others to
long to attain to the height of this vision : where-
fore, they strove to withdraw their minds from all
worldly cares and anxieties ; and by tears and
continued prayers many obtained the same grace,
so that among the sisters, many were, even against
their will, plunged into this light. There was there
in the convent a nun of consummate good sense,
and she, knowing that it is not right to trust to
every spirit, thought that this state was to be attri-
buted to disease or fantastic illusions, and as much
as she could, tried to dissuade the sisters from
having these visions frequently. One day she asked
the Superioress why no such thing happened to
herself, and she received for answer, ' Because thou
dost not believe us, nor love in others that virtue
which thou hast not thyself.' Then the nun answered,
' Do thou pray to God for me, that if this be from
Him, the same thing may happen to me.' And
when they had prayed for some days to no purpose,
she asked the same question of the Superioress, who

CANONS OF SEMPRINGHAM 105

answered/ Thou must renounce all the things of
this world, and affections for every mortal, and
employ thyself in thinking about God alone.'
'What/ said she, 'am I not to pray for my friends
and benefactors ? ' ' Then/ answered the Supe-
rioress, ' when thou wouldest ascend by contempla-
tion to the higher powers of thy soul, thou must
commend and entrust to God all whom thou lovest ;
and as though thou wert quitting this world, bidding
adieu to every creature, raise up thy soul to the sight
of Him whom thou lovest.' She, however, still be-
lieved not, but begged of her to pray yet more, that
if these things came from God, she should receive
what she desired. Still she said, ' I would not have
my soul so rapt from the body and raised on high,
that the remembrance of all things, and above all,
of my friends, should be wiped away from my
mind ; I shall be satisfied to know whether these
things be of God.' Now, on the day of Pentecost,
when she was tossing about with anxious thoughts,
the light of which we have spoken was shed upon
her, so that she was wafted up into it in an unspeak-
able manner, and was raised on high. Then unable
to bear with her weak vision that inaccessible light
which was beaming upon her, she prayed that her
soul should be recalled, as far as it might, to the
contemplation of the passion of the Lord. Then,
though she had before seen in a rapid glance that
which is very being, she was suffered to descend
from this lofty vision to a lower one, and was trans-
ferred in spirit to that vision of the Passion, and
saw in the spirit Jesus hanging on the cross, pierced
with the nails, smitten through with the lance, and

io6 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

the blood flowing through the five wounds, and
Him looking on herself with a most tender look.
Then bursting into tears, and repenting, she begged
pardon of her sisters, and declared herself unworthy
of this light." There are more things in heaven
and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy,
and we might have learned this from him who was
carried up into the third heaven, whether in the
body or out of the body he knew not, and heard
things which human words could no more express
than the eye can hear, or the ear see.

And who were these in whom God showed forth
these wonders ? They were not persons sitting with
their hands across all day following the fancy or the
feeling of the moment ; their vestments were not
long and flowing, nor their veils elegantly disposed
about their foreheads ; their churches were not
magnificent, nor did beautiful strains of devotional
music float from the pealing organ through their
long-drawn cloisters. They were simply little,
quiet-looking nuns of St. Benedict ; the wimple
which enveloped their head and throat was plain
and coarse, and so was their veil ; and even the
ample cuculla or long white mantle1 which they
wore in choir was not to sweep along the ground,2
" for they who delight in this or in beauty of apparel
without doubt are rejected of God." 3 For the
winter they had a tippet of rough sheep-skin, and a
cap lined with white lamb's wool, for it was very
cold when they rose in the night and went into the

1 Cuculla alba, Reg. ap. Dugdale, vii. p. Ixxix. 18.

2 Panni quibus capita earum involvuntur nigri erunt et grossi, v. Reg.
p. 79, 17. :{ Ibid.

CANONS OF SEMPRINGHAM 107

church, when the wind blew across the fens of
Lincolnshire, or the chill mist rose from the waters
of the river which surrounded their little islands.
Instead of being idle, during all the hours when in
the Benedictine or Cistercian rule the monks were
working in the fields, they were preparing the wool
from their own sheep, baking1 or washing, or
cutting out the clothes of the canons for the work
of the lay-sisters, or cooking for themselves and the
whole community. At other times they all sat
together in the cloister, some of them reading
learned books in a learned language, for there were
literate ladies among them ; but all, whether poring
over homely English or majestic Latin, sat in perfect
silence, and it was especially enjoined that there
were to be no cross looks, but all were to have a
cheerful and sweet countenance as became sisters.
Even on the great feast-days, when ordinarily
exempt from work, if the poor lay-sisters were
over-burdened, the nuns were to quit their books,
or even their prayers, and to help them. No music
wras allowed in their churches, but only grave and
simple chants, like the Cistercians, except that they
could not, of course, as in the Cistercian rule, forbid
womanish voices ; and the chants proceeding in the
stillness of the night from so many female voices must
have been most sweet and beautiful. No great
quantity of wax lights were allowed in the church,
and altogether the same Cistercian simplicity was
observed in all the details of the service. In one in-
stance only this simplicity was relaxed to condescend

1 Moniales de pistrino, Reg. p. Ixxviii. 16.

io8 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

to the lay-sisters ; in a Cistercian church, instead of
elaborate sculpture and canopied niches, no image
was allowed but the one crucifix on the altar. But
if an image of the " blessed Virgin Mary " were given
to the convent, it might be given to the altar of the
sisters, to remind them of her perpetual virginity,
which they were to emulate. And even when the
canons and the nuns made processions round the
cloister, on the greatest days in the year, so little
was picturesque effect aimed at, that curtains were
hung round on the columns of the arches, lest the
brethren and the nuns should catch glimpses of
each other as the procession with cross and banner
wound round the corners of the choir, or might
be seen through the interstices of the windows.
Meditation was the soul of the Order ; the nuns
rose about two o'clock in the morning, like the
Cistercians, and when matins were over all who
chose remained behind in the church, or glided in
afterwards from the cloister ; and as day dawned,
the first light of morning saw them still upon their
knees pouring out their hearts before God, and
meditating on the adorable mysteries of the faith,
or interceding for the world without, and for the
friends whom they had left there. At all times, day
or night, when they were not at work or in the
office, they might go into the church and pray.
Even those who could not read or join in the
office could meditate, and though they were set to
work while the others were reading, yet they were
allowed to enter the church if they would.1 If to

1 This seems to have been the distinction between the nuns who
could not read and the lay-sisters. The rule calls these nuns sane-

CANONS OF SEMPRINGHAM 109

all this we join the austerity of the Cistercian rule,
that is, the unmitigated rule of St. Benedict, there
will be but little room left for romance or senti-
ment. Unmurmuring obedience to superiors,
whether the prioress or the canon, as spiritual
director, and a perfect resignation of the will were
the necessary conditions of being a nun at all.

The canons who had the spiritual care of the
nuns, were very different from the old Benedictine
or from the Cistercian monks ; the monk was not
by any means necessarily a learned man ; on the
contrary, his business was to labour with his own
hands to get his living, so that he had much more
to do with gardening and digging than with books.
But the canon was necessarily a clerk and a student;
Gilbert's first canons were taken from among his
scholars, whom he had instructed in all the learn-
ing of Paris. Canons in the middle of the eleventh
century were by no means always reputable per-
sonages : the old reform of St. Chrodegang, and the
regulations of Aix-la-Chapelle had died away, and
the canons were in many instances in a most cor-
rupt state. The vehement remonstrances of St.
Peter Damian had their effect, and the attention of
the Supreme Pontiffs was drawn to this enormous
evil, so that after the second Lateran Council, re-
forms were continually made in the old canons,
and new congregations set up. The institution of
monks instead of the canons in several of our
cathedrals was a portion of this movement ; and the
canons of St. Victor of Paris and the Premonstrants

timoniales laicse, while what we call lay-sisters are there called sorores
in opposition to the sanctimoniales,

no ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

were all connected with it. The second Lateran
Council ordered all canons to take St. Augustine's
rule, and from this time they were called Augustinian.
This rule consists of an adaptation of St. Augus-
tine's iO9th letter1 to the condition of canons in-
stead of nuns. This letter is what is meant when
the rule of St. Augustine is mentioned in Gilbert's
rule; it is, however, so very general in its regulations
that canons were not necessarily under a discipline
so severe as that of monks. The chief regulation
consisted in living together and giving up property ;
but besides this, in particular places, a stricter dis-
cipline was in force. Thus Gilbert filled up St.
Augustine's outline from other sources, but prin-
cipally from the Cistercian rule. They were of the
new order of monks of the twelfth century, who
scandalised 2 the ancient Benedictines, Cluniacs and
canons, by wearing white instead of the old sober
black of the monastic orders. And in this they
were followers of the »Cistercians and Premon-
strants ; they were, like them, the growth of the age
of St. Bernard, and had more subjective religion, so
to speak, than appeared on the surface in the older
monasteries. This, of course, is but a question of
degree, for the Christian, in every case, looks beyond
himself at Him who is the object of his faith ; but
yet it is true that the Gilbertines, like the Cistercians,
preferred the " usefulness of wholesome medita-
tion,"3 to beautiful paintings and sculptures. In

1 It is a question whether this letter (the 2iith in the Benedictine
edition) or the two sermons de moribus clericorum, is the rule pointed
out in the Lateran Council. But the letter is what is probably meant
by Gilbert.

2 Vid. Oderic Vit. lib. iii. p. 711. 3 Reg. p. i. 15.

CANONS OF SEMPRINGHAM in

their habit they had more of the canon than of the
monk, though indeed the white scapular for labour
had something monastic in it ; but the tippet of
rough sheep-skin over the black tunic looks like the
original aumuce of the canon, and they wore a
white pallium or mantle, lined with lamb's wool,
instead of the monk's cuculla. At mass and on
feast days they laid aside the coarse mantle, and
wore a white cope of linen, like the cuculla of the
monk, except that it had no sleeves ; in this cope
they were buried, for it was the proper habit of
canons. In the relations between the canons and
the nuns, Gilbert had an eye to his old office in
Alexander of Lincoln's court. As it was the theory
that all the priest's power in hearing confessions
emanated from the bishop, so the Prior of Semp-
ringham, as master of the whole Order, gave license
to hear confessions ; x and as the diocese had a
penitentiary, so there was a sacerdos confessionis,
who confessed the nuns generally. Besides this,
the intention was, that every convent of nuns should
have at least seven canons attached to it, who said
mass and had the ordinary spiritual direction of the
nuns, under the authority of the prior.2 The whole
of these regulations were so managed that the
canons and the nuns never saw each other, except
when a nun was at the point of death, and the
priest entered to administer extreme unction, and

1 Priores ordinis nostri de licentia magistri generalem habent aucto-
ritatem omnium canonicorum confessiones audiendi, Reg. p. xxxii. 5.

2 This does not appear so much from the Gilbertine rule itself, as
from the confirmation of the rule by Innocent III. Adjacimus ut
unicuique domui vestri ordinis sanctimonialium canonici prasponantur
quibus animarum cura, pro dispositione prioris imminet.

ii2 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

to commend her soul into the hands of God. The
nuns were unseen when they made their confessions
or received the Holy Sacrament, for which purposes
a grating was constructed. The time of death alone
brought the canons and nuns together. There were
two separate churches, and across that of the nuns
was built a screen ; when a choir-sister died, her
body, dressed in her habit, was laid before the altar,
so that the canons might come and chant the
service for the dead about her.1 The whole convent
in procession accompanied any one of its members
to the grave, whether canon or nun, lay brother or
sister.

We have now got the whole of Gilbert's institute
complete, as far as regards each individual convent,
but there is another and most important portion,
and that is the jurisdiction of the monasteries among
themselves. In this respect, it must be confessed
that the rule was defective. Gilbert was at great
disadvantage ; when the Cistercians refused to take
the institute into their hands, he was forced to con-
struct for himself a complicated system out of the
rules of various monastic orders. The Cistercians
again were said to have two houses in every one of
their monasteries, one of monks, the other of lay-
brethren ; Gilbert had four, one of canons, another
of nuns, a third of lay-brethren, and a fourth of lay-

1 P. 91. i. — There is some obscurity in the way in which these
churches are mentioned, but the church of the nuns is distinctly named,
Reg. p. i. 17, and that of the canons, xlix. 14. It would seem that
the church of Sempringham had been turned into a conventual church,
while that of Tirington remained a parish church. At least the latter
is not mentioned in the list of the possessions of the Order, in Inno-
cent's confirmation.

CANONS OF SEMPRINGHAM 113

sisters. Part of these rules he gathered from the
Cistercians, and part seems to come from the Pre-
monstrants, who had just been established in
England. 1 The result of the whole is an intricate
system, which leaves a feeling of indistinctness on
the mind of the reader. The principal difficulty in
the Order is evidently the management of the lay-
brethren. In the Cistercian Order, the monks
worked so much themselves, and were so numer-
ous, that the lay-brethren had comparatively a light
office. But the Gilbertine canons were few, and
were students, so that the brethren had nearly the
whole \vork to perform for all four communities.
Besides which it should be remembered that the
canons were an after-thought, and an unexpected
addition to the labour of the brethren. In a future
chapter, it will be found that this was a most serious
evil ; the practical working of the whole will then
come before us, and the reader will be better able
to judge of the defects of this portion of the in-
stitute.

1 The Circatores of the Gilbertines seem to be derived from the
Order of the Premonstrants, the provinces of which were called
Circarke.

VOL. IV. H

IIDDADV CT AAADV'C Cf\\ I C/ZP

CHAPTER VIII

GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS

WHEN in the year 1150 Gilbert founded so many
houses of his Order, he might fairly have considered
himself as an old soldier, who had won a title to
rest. He was then between sixty and seventy years
old; but he had yet many years of life to go through,
and they were to be the least peaceful of all. He
had hitherto remained in quiet at Sempringham,
but now another hand was to bind him and lead
him in his old age whether it would. From the
first time that he set sail on the Channel, and
touched the shores of France, he was to have
trouble and vexation, and tedious journeys to and
fro. He was at peace when he was the parish
priest of Sempringham, with only seven holy vir-
gins to rule, all of whom he had known from their
childhood. But now the Pope had made him the
head of his Order; he was now a great man, and had
property under his control, houses and churches,
meadows and corn-fields, islands and fisheries.
He found to his cost that property involved care ; he
was now in danger of becoming the mere man of
business. He had to be on horseback, and to ride
about from convent to convent, attended by his
chaplains and a lay-brother. Nay, he found what

GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS 115

was worse than all, that possessions involved law-
suits; he had to renew his acquaintance with the
palaces of bishops, and come into the courts of
chancellors and high justiciars. And when the king
was in Normandy, to and fro, he had to sail across
the seas, to have his cause decided. He had often
to bear cold looks and sneers of contempt, nay, in
defending the rights of his Church, he was ill treated
by some powerful tyrant, and even beaten. He
was now in a good school for humility, and he
rejoiced in the humiliation which God had sent him
to make him like his Lord. What these lawsuits
were about, the scanty notice of his biographer does
not tell us, but there was another anxiety upon him
which we can easily imagine for ourselves, and that
was the care of so many churches, and so many
souls. What he had begun in simple faith as a part
of the government of his parish, had now grown
into an Order, and before he died, nine houses of
nuns and canons together, and four of canons alone,
had been founded, so that he had under his direc-
tion fifteen hundred nuns, and seven hundred
canons. In the rule of this large body he had to
preserve his soul from partiality to particular
persons or places, lest it should withdraw his mind
from the attention due to the whole. In order to
keep his mind fixed upon God alone, he lived a life
of greater austerity than seemed possible for his
now aged body. He followed the usual exercises
of the convent, and was therefore always in the
refectory with the canons, but his meals were so
slender as to be a continued mortification. By his
side he ever had a platter, which he called the

n6 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

Lord's dish, and into this he threw the greater part
of what was set before him, that it might be given
to the poor. At night, when compline was over,
and the whole convent at rest, he remained in
prayer, interceding for all his brethren and sisters,
for prelates and kings, for the dead, and for the
living. All night long he continued sitting on his
bed, without laying his head on a pillow, and in
this posture he slept, his head resting on his chest.
God so rewarded his servant that whatever he did,
his soul was ever fixed on God in prayer ; to assist
himself he made a sort of rosary of his fingers,
reciting some prayer on each of the joints. He
loved the sweet voice of the Church in her chants,
and tears ran down his cheeks when he was singing
hymns and canticles in the choir.1 But his tears
were not always those of devotion and joy ; he wept
with those who wept, and especially bemoaned with
tears over the impenitent, who would not weep for
themselves. In the direction of so many souls he
met with many forms of the tempter's wiles, and
many sins ; and in the difficult management of such
cases, he tempered severity with kindness. "We
have seen him," says his disciple, "when any one
had sinned even to deserve excommunication, and
then repented, at first appear hard-hearted, and
almost inexorable, in order to try the contrition
of the penitent; but, when he saw that the peni-
tence was true and sincere, he shed tears in the
presence of all, and called together his friends
and brethren, and made all rejoice with him over

1 Suave sonantis vocibus ecclesise illectus. — Vita St. Gilb. p. 16.

GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS 117

the once lost sheep. Thus afflicting himself, and
suffering with the afflicted, he followed Jesus with
his cross." l For some time he would not formally
enter his own Order ; he probably wished to be
more able to give up his charge before he died,
but at last he was persuaded to do so, lest the
royal authority should take occasion to appoint
his successor, and make of Sempringham a sort
of commendatory priory. He therefore at Bull-
ington Priory received the habit at the hands
of Roger, Prior of Malton, one of his original
canons, whom he made in everything his chief
adviser.

He continued in this mode of life till the year
1164, when it might seem that his life was now
drawing to a close ; he had outlived all the Saints
of his day ; St. Norbert and St. Malachi had long
been at rest, and now St. Bernard was gone too,
and Pope Eugenius. He had seen the last days
of the Conqueror, and had lived through the
days of the Red King, and of Henry, and in the
troublous times of Stephen, he had dwelt at peace,
and had peacefully founded his monasteries, and
ruled his nuns ; and now a new king was on the
throne, powerful as the Conqueror, passionate as
his successor, and withal wily and clever as Henry
Beauclerc. Gilbert had in his youth seen St.
Anselm's struggle with the secular power, and
now a more deadly battle was awaiting the Church,
in which he too was to take his share.2 The battle
had begun, and the Church had gained her point

1 Ubi supra.
2 John of Hexham, in ann. 1154.

n8 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

in Stephen's time ; Henry Murdach had been made
Archbishop of York, in the King's teeth, and the
liberty of election vindicated. Gervase, Stephen's
son, had been degraded from the Abbacy of West-
minster, the revenues of which he had wasted ; and
Theobald, after vindicating an archbishop's right
to cross the Channel in obedience to the mandate
of the Holy See, had returned in triumph, having
laid the royal domain under an interdict ; finally,
in 1151, a Council, held in London, had asserted
the privileges of the ecclesiastical courts against
the pleas of the barons. But Henry Plantagenet
was a very different man from Stephen, who was
only a chivalrous assertor of a disputed crown ; he
was a reformer, and the ecclesiastical courts must
needs square with his reforms ; they must not
come in the way of circuits and justices in eyre,
and the King's lieges must not be excommunicated
without his leave, though they have transgressed
ecclesiastical law, and parish churches must be
given away according to the decisions of the courts
of my lord the king ; and to clinch the whole,
England must be separated from the head of the
Church, for no appeals to Rome must interfere
with the King's justice.

Henry knew not what he had done, when he
called Thomas his chancellor, and said to him, " It
is my will that thou be Archbishop of Canterbury."
Nay, the noble-minded chancellor knew not the
meaning of his own words, when he pointed to
his gay dress and said with a smile, " Truly a
religious man and a holy thou wouldst place in
this holy seat, over so holy and famous a convent

GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS 119

of monks ; know well, that if by God's will it
should be so, thou wilt very soon turn thy soul
away from me, and the goodwill which there is
now between us will be turned into the most
savage hatred. I know well that thou wouldst make
exactions, yea, that thou dost now dare much in
Church matters, which I could not bear." It was a
good stroke of policy in Henry ; the Pope wished it,
and the bishops and the clergy wished it ; it would
cement so firmly the good feeling between Church
and State. But Thomas knew Henry better ; and
he knew too what an Archbishop of Canterbury
could do if he would. However, Henry had his
will, and to the joy of all but himself, Thomas was
consecrated archbishop. But a very few years
after, the scene was much changed ; the king's
famous constitutions, his scheme of Church reform,
had been brought forward. Thomas opposed it,
for he saw through the meaning of them. He was
deserted by the bishops ; some could not, others
would not see ; they saw that Henry's eyes looked
fiery, and they gave up the Church's liberty.
Thomas yielded for a moment ; he received the
constitutions, but asked for more time to consider
them before he put his seal to them. The seal was
never put ; the inferior ecclesiastics in general, the
smaller abbeys, and sisterhoods of nuns, and the
parish priests, as a body, all felt a strong and
almost instinctive sympathy, all through the con-
test, with the archbishop, and now his momentary
weakness filled the hearts of those about him with
dread. As they were going home from the Council,
his attendants whispered among each other sad

120 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

words about the fortunes of the Church, and one,
the cross-bearer, who rode before him, murmured
something about a victory won over the general,
and now it was useless for others to fight. The
archbishop heard his words and said, " Why sayest
thou this, my son ? " when the cross-bearer spoke
his mind openly, then that noble heart was well-
nigh broken, and he sighed deeply, for he saw his
error. "No wonder," he thought; "the Church
may well become a servant through my means. I
came to rule her, not from the school of Christ, not
from the cloister, but from the king's court, a
courtier proud and vain. I, the leader of buffoons,
the master of hounds, the nurturer of hawks. I, to
be the shepherd of so many souls." Then tears in
abundance broke forth, and he sobbed aloud.
However, the battle was not yet lost, and so the
king felt, as soon as it was known that the arch-
bishop had repented. Henry's temper was none of
the best, and much less would have been enough to
try it. That his chancellor, the man of his creation,
the warlike archdeacon, who loved the noise of
battle so well that he gratuitously plunged into it,
the gay courtier in the ermine cloak, the acute
diplomatist learned in the law, that he should turn
against him and set up for a Saint ! It was too
much, and he vowed vengeance. It was his own
fault ; he did not know what a heart beat under
that ermine cloak, what a hatred of impurity and
an unsullied chastity were there, even in its most
worldly times. There was stuff to make a martyr
of in that noble heart, now that God's grace had
touched it, and Thomas listened like a little chiid to

GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS 121

his own cross-bearer, to John of Salisbury, or any
friend who reproved him. But whoever was to
blame it was now too late, and the archbishop
must be got rid of. In 1164 articles of impeach-
ment were framed against him, grounded on his
conduct as chancellor; this was coming near the
question at issue, whether an ecclesiastic was amen-
able to a civil tribunal. The bishops deserted him ;
one or two secretly assisted him, among whom, it
must be said, was Henry of Winchester, who, from
an instinctive liking for what was great, or because
his visit to Cluny had improved him, took his part.
As a body, however, the bishops left him to the
tender mercies of the king.

The proceedings of the court are obscure, but
it appears that on the first days of the trial heavy
and ruinous fines were imposed on the archbishop ;
the cowardice of the bishops apparently encouraged
the king, and it was intimated to Thomas, that on
the last day he should have to defend himself on a
criminal charge of perjury and treason. From
Thomas's indignant words to the bishops it seems
that he made a distinction between a civil and a
criminal action, and refused to be amenable to the
royal tribunal in the latter case. The former accusa-
tions respected his conduct when chancellor ; this
one called him in question for what he had done
as archbishop. Frightful rumours were afloat that
the archbishop was to be murdered in the court.
At this terrible time, when all shrunk from his side,
one unknown monk, the representative of many a
poor brother and sister who were praying for him,
bade him the next day celebrate a mass in honour

122 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

of the blessed first martyr, Stephen, and so he
should escape his enemies. Thomas trembled, after
having so lately lived a secular life he thought him-
self unfit to wear the crown of martyrdom ; yet not
for one moment did his heart shrink from what he
had to do. l The next day, though it was no holy-
day, in full pontificals, with the mitre on his head,
and the pallium round his neck, he celebrated
the mass in honour of St. Stephen. Some of the
king's attendants who were in the church wondered
what it meant, but they wondered still more when,
fresh from the sacrifice in which he had offered up
himself with the immaculate Lamb, he took the
cross from the hand of his attendant, and in the
sacred vestments he made his way towards the
king's court. All shrunk back before him. The
bishops stood aghast ; it was a proclamation of
open \var ; it stripped the question of all legal form,
and made it start up in all its naked awfulness ; the
archbishop must die, or the constitutions be
accepted. By God's grace neither happened. The
king and the barons did not await him ; it was
bringing the question to an issue a little too soon,
and they retired to an inner room. It was a pale
and trembling troop which they left behind, the
bishops of England cowering around the majestic
figure of the archbishop. Quietly he sat, with a
young clerk, his attendant, at his feet ; and when
some of the officials from the king's chamber came
down and glared fiercely on him, he only bent his
head, and spoke words of comfort to the poor youth.

1 Et adhuc conjicio ex his quoe dicitis vos non solum in civili sed in
criminali causa, in foro saeculari, judicare me paratos.— Quadril. i. 29.

GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS 123

At length judgment was pronounced that the arch-
bishop was a traitor and a perjured man. Then in
came Robert, Earl of Leicester, with a troop of
barons, and bade him come to the king, to answer
the impeachment, or hear his sentence at once.
" Sentence !" said the archbishop, and with the cross
still in his hand, he rose up and continued, " Nay,
Lord Earl, my son, hear thou first;" and he refused
this impeachment before a civil tribunal, and then
appealed to the Pope. His last words were, "And
thus, by authority of the Church and the Apostolic
See, I go hence." Then he quietly walked down the
hall, and the nobles and courtiers followed him all
the way with outcries and abuse, but none durst stop
an archbishop so habited, and with such a weapon.
The door was locked, the keys were hanging against
the wall, and one of the archbishop's attendants
took them down, and trying one after another, he
found the right one, and the archbishop passed
forth from the hall from which he never thought
to have come alive.

During this contest, and indeed throughout the
whole of the momentous struggle, it was evident
who were on the archbishop's side, and who were
against him. All in authority shrunk from him ; l
but while the bishops were afraid to support him,
the clerks, who attended them, openly expressed
their sympathy ; thus, when Roger, Archbishop of

1 Reliqui vero fere omnes in inferioribus gradibus constituti personam
vestram sincerae charitatis brachiis amplexantur aids sed in silentio
suspiriis implorantes ut Sponsus Ecclesia ad glorium sui nominis felici
vota vestra secundet eventu. — St. Thomas Ep. i. 85, ap. Lup. op. torn. x.
p. no.

i24 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

York, was withdrawing from the court for fear of
what was coming, he met two of his clerks and
bade them follow him. But one of them, Master
Robert, said : " I will not go from hence till I have
seen what God's will comes of these matters ; if my
Lord of Canterbury fight for God and for His jus-
tice even unto blood, he cannot end his life more
nobly." And, as was afterwards proved, this held
good with the monastic orders ; the heads of the
Cistercian Order in England shrank from the storm
when Henry threatened to drive every white monk
out of his realm, if they continued to shelter the
archbishop ; but the Abbot of Circumpanum l was
not afraid of Henry's anger, and entering into his
very presence, delivered a message from the arch-
bishop ; and many a poor English monk ventured
his white habit among Henry's armed retainers for
the same purpose, till the barons advised the king
to extirpate the Order, and Henry wrote a letter of
complaint to the Abbot of Citeaux.2 But it was
not only the Cistercian authorities, but those of
the Carthusians and of the Order of Grandmont,
that Henry duped.3 There was, however, an Order
which steadily, and from the first, took part with
the archbishop, and that was the Gilbertine. When,
after the Council of Northampton, Thomas de-
termined to fly from England, and rose at night
from his bed in the church of the Cluniac convent

1 Ep. ii. 84. There may be some mistake in the name of this Abbey,
which can nowhere be found, but the fact is certain.

2 Ep. xxxiv. b. 2 ; v. also Ep. i. 92.

3 Ep. v. 12, where Mr. Froude, apparently by reading adimplerent
for adimpleret, has given a turn to the sentence still more unfavourable
to the monastic orders.

GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS 125

of St. Andrew, we find a poor brother of the Order
of Sempringham at his side, to guide him through
the wild swamps of the country, to the city of
Lincoln. From thence, he went down the river
for the space of forty miles, and the little boat
threaded its way among the watery wastes and
fens of Lincolnshire, till they landed on a lonely
spot, surrounded on all sides by water, a hermitage
belonging to the Order of Sempringham.1 Here he
remained in security for three days, for no one
would have dreamed of meeting his Lordship of
Canterbury in that dreary place. But he was glad
of this solitary island with its little chapel in the
wilderness, for he here recruited his wasted strength
before he crossed the sea. He lived on the coarse
food of the monks, and when the brother who was
attending on him saw him sitting alone at a table,
eating vegetables, he burst into tears, and left the
room to hide them. His next stage was again a
dependency of Sempringham called Haverolot ; 2
after this he came out of the intricate wilderness of
fens, the little out-of-the-way world of the Gilbert-
ines, into the civilised path of the great world which
lay beyond, and he durst not any longer travel by

1 This is probably " pastura cum mansura, Johannis quondam here-
mitse in marisco de Hoiland," mentioned in the confirmation of the
possessions of the Order by Innocent III. noticed above. The place is
still shown not far from Tattershall and Coningsby.

2 A place called St. Botolph's, is mentioned on the way between
the hermitage and Haverolot ; it appears likely that this is the villa
qure dicitur Sanctus Botulfus, named in the confirmation ; perhaps
Haverolot may be the house of the Order said to be there. Camden
mentions a place called Botolfstoune, near Boston, and the Order had
lands at Tilney, near the same place. Haverolot was therefore pro-
bably in the neighbourhood of Boston.

126 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

day. He lay hid at Estray, a manor belonging to
St. Trinity of Canterbury, till All Souls' Day, when
a vessel was provided to take him over to France.

Here, in an obscure cove on the coast, was put
ashore the Archbishop of Canterbury ; still he was
not out of danger, for when he was chancellor he
had opposed the wicked marriage of the Earl of
Boulogne with an abbess, and the earl would cer-
tainly have given him up to Henry. So he put on
the white habit of a Cistercian monk, and the rough

* o

monkish cloak upon his shoulders, and calling him-
self brother Christian, trudged on foot through the
mire and the rain. He was indeed very little like
himself in such a guise as this, but he could not
hide himself, and two or three times he was all but
discovered. Two men were seen hawking as the
party passed along the road, and for a moment
Thomas forgot his troubles to fix his eyes upon a
beautiful hawk on the sportsman's wrist. "Ha !" said
one of the men, " if I mistake not, we have here the
Archbishop of Canterbury." " Fool," said his fellow,
" what need has the archbishop to walk in such gear
as this ? " He had not gone far before his strength
failed him, and he sank down, declaring that he
could go no farther, and that they must carry him
or get him a horse ; so they went and bought him
a horse for a few shillings, with a straw bridle into
the bargain. As he rode on, equipped in this sorry
way, some armed men came up and asked him if he
were the Archbishop of Canterbury. " What ! is it
the wont of Canterbury to ride in such trappings as
these ? " was his answer, and the argument was con-
clusive, for they looked at the figure besmirched

GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS 127

with mud on the sorry steed, and thought it could
not be he, who when chancellor, rode at the head
of twelve hundred knights. In this guise, about
evening, he came into Gravelines, and went to a
poor inn to rest for the night. But mine host
looked at Brother Christian and bethought himself
he had seldom seen so majestic a Cistercian before,
and when he looked again, he thought that that
ample forehead, and long melancholy face, and
those delicate hands, could only belong to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury ; and so he told the peasant
girl who waited on the guest. And the poor maiden
brought him nuts, and cheese, and all she could, to
do him honour ; the host too threw himself at his
feet, and, notwithstanding his attempts to disguise
the truth, he could not but acknowledge who he
was. A few days after, he was riding in a very
different accoutrement from that in which he
entered Gravelines ; when once he got into the
territories of the King of France, he was again
received as became an archbishop, and rode into
St. Bertin attended by a train of the gallant chivalry
of France, and Louis received him with open
arms.

Meanwhile, Pope Alexander and the cardinals
were sadly perplexed ; they had already the em-
peror and an antipope to deal with, and that was
quite enough without quarrelling with Henry to
boot. Besides which, English gold and promises
had done its work even in the Sacred College ; and
prudent men began to think that these were not
times to enforce antiquated pretensions ; the arch-
bishop was a chivalrous and high-minded man, but

128 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

chimerical schemes must not for all that trouble
the peace of the kingdom. But all these, the usual
excuses of cold-hearted men, disappeared when at
Soissons the archbishop met the Pope, and with
simple earnestness laid before him the constitutions
of Clarendon. Alexander saw at once what was the
question at issue, and none of the cardinals durst
propose that these new royal customs should be
introduced. But all became breathless with sur-
prise when Thomas took the ring from his finger
with which he had been married to his Church and
put it into the hands of his Holiness. No wonder,
he said, things had gone wrong with him ; he had
been placed on the throne of Canterbury, not by
the will of God, but by the will of the king ; and
now the Church of Christ was suffering for his sins.
He would not resign to the king, for that would
have been a betrayal of the cause of the Church,
but, " into thy hands, father, I resign the Arch-
bishopric of Canterbury." At these words of a
noble-minded man, daily advancing in self-know-
ledge and humility, many shed tears ; but then in
came the prudent men, and they thought the oppor-
tunity was a good one ; it was the very thing which
was wanted to make things smooth ; it would restore
the proper harmony between Church and State.
But this was a doctrine too ungenerous and cowardly
for the Holy See to adopt ; and Alexander restored
the ring to Thomas, and refused to accept his re-
signation. And then he said, " Up to this time thou
hast abounded in the good things of this life, but
now, in order that thou mayest learn how to be
the comforter of the poor, thou must take religious

GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS 129

poverty for thy mother, and learn of her. I com-
mend thee, therefore, to the poor ones of Christ ;
I mean to this man/' he said, pointing to the Abbot
of Pontigny, who was present. And so Thomas
went to the holy Abbey of Pontigny, in the broad
and rich vale through which flow the clear waters
of the Serain on its way to join the Yonne ; and
here, with the good Cistercian monks, he remained
in peace. He now, perhaps, for the first time in
his life, could sit in solitude and silence and look
upon himself. He would read and meditate on the
mighty mysteries of theology, and study the Holy
Scriptures, which he used to look upon with an
awful wonder when he read them with Master
Herbert of Lombardy, and used to sigh that he
had no more leisure. He had leisure enough now,
and in a course of long and bitter years he was
training up to be a martyr.

Scarcely had Thomas reached Pontigny when
a persecution commenced against his friends in
England. Gilbert has his cross, too, and we will
come to him in time ; but who are all these that
crowd around the gates of Pontigny ? Cold,
hunger, and nakedness are evidently playing sad
havoc among them. Alas ! they are the friends of
Thomas, all who have lifted up a voice or a finger
for him, whom now Henry in his rage has expelled
from their homes and made them swear to go
across the sea to Pontigny, to show the archbishop
what sufferings are endured because he is obstinate.
Henry sought out all the kinsfolk of Thomas, all
whom he loved best, and all in any way con-
nected with him, and bound them by this terrible

VOL. IV. I

130 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

oath to present themselves at the abbey -gates.
Delicate females with infants in their arms fainted
by the way in Flanders, and could not come, for it
was midwinter; but Thomas heard of them all from
those who could reach him, and they were all names
which he had known familiarly. This was the
greatest cross of all ; it was in its measure like the
pain of our blessed Lord when He from the cross
saw His mother suffering with Him. All this might
be spared if Thomas would but say a little word, if
he would but quit a high-souled dream, and be like
other bishops. Then all these could go back to
their pleasant homes, to dear England, and be
happy again. But Thomas did not shrink for a
moment ; this would be coming down from the
cross where he was hanging with his Lord, and
giving up the Bride of Christ, not to the beloved
disciple, but to the Roman governor. He wrote to
the kings and nobles on the Continent who favoured
his cause, and the poor exiles were distributed
among them. But there were still troubles in
England which the archbishop could not heal ;
and Gilbert had his full share in these. He seems
to have understood the archbishop, and the in-
terests which were at stake, better than any one of
those who were not his immediate friends. Who
indeed understood him thoroughly ? Not certainly
that bold cross-bearer who amused his indulgent
master by asking him how his robe behind came to
be so puffed out, and knew not that under his pon-
tifical vestments he wore a shirt of hair ; and who
was disposed to smile again when he found that the
cowl of the monkish habit which the Pope had sent

GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS 131

the archbishop was all too short. Nor did the
Abbot of Pontigny understand him, when the arch-
bishop talked of having dreamed that he should
be martyred, and the good abbot, with conventual
prejudice, smiled and asked, " What has a man who
eats and drinks to do with martyrdom ? " None of
them, though they came closest to him, knew what
was in him. But Gilbert understood well what he
was fighting for, and showed that he was prepared
to suffer for the cause. The share which Gilbert's
Order had had in the escape of the archbishop out
of the kingdom, exposed its head to suspicion. At
this time the king was in great dread of the sentence
of an interdict proceeding from the archbishop
upon the whole kingdom, and the most savage
orders had been issued against any clerk or other
person who should bring the sentence into the
kingdom. Loss of eyes and burning were a portion
of the provisions of this sanguinary enactment.
This might be a specimen for Gilbert of what the
king was capable of in his wrath. When, therefore,
with all the priors of his Order, he was summoned
to Westminster to clear himself of this suspicion, he
knew not what might happen to him. When he
arrived in London, he found that he was accused
of having sent supplies of money to the archbishop.
This was high treason ; but the judges (it was most
probably in the court of the Earl of Leicester, high
justiciar of England) were disposed to be lenient,
and to respect his grey hairs and his character for
sanctity. They only required of him to take an oath
that he had not sent supplies to the archbishop.
This seemed a very simple mode of terminating the

132 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

affair ; but Gilbert bethought himself that though it
was quite true that he had not sent any money, all
the world would suppose, if he took the oath, that
he thought it wrong to assist the noble exile in his
struggle for the rights of the Church. He there-
fore quietly refused to take the oath. The judges
threatened exile ; his priors thought it chimerical to
refuse the safety which was offered to him by Pro-
vidence ; they thought it wrong, and a violation of
their vow, to expose themselves to be forced away
from their cloisters for a doubtful point of honour.
But Gilbert had made up his mind ; he knew how
much was at stake, and he thought it worth the
risk; he rejoiced and thanked God that in his old
age, after a life of peace, God should now give him
grace to bear the reproach of Christ, and to be a
confessor for His Church. It is a temptation pecu-
liar to monks, to convert their cloister too much
into a home, and to set their hearts upon it ; and
so it was with the Gilbertine priors, and with other
monastic authorities in those days too ; they had
given up one home for Christ's sake, and never ex-
pected to have to give up another, with which all
their religious associations were connected. The
great world beyond their cloister was nothing to
them, and why should they give up the scene of
their duties, to which they were bound by a solemn
vow, for any of its turmoils ? And it might have
been thought that Gilbert's many years of cloistral
life would have made him identify Sempringham
with the Church ; but he was now ready to risk the
breaking up of his Order, and to join the arch-
bishop in his exile. The judges were sorely puzzled ;

GILBERT AND ST. THOMAS 133

they knew not what was to be done with a man who
would not take the mercy which they offered him.
They were, however, unwilling to condemn him, so
they sent over to Normandy, to know what was the
king's pleasure, for Henry was then on the Con-
tinent.1 Meanwhile Gilbert and his priors were
detained in London, to the sore annoyance of the
latter ; they might any day be sent at once into
exile, as had happened to so many, in a state of
destitution into a foreign land. Gilbert had enough
to do to keep them in order ; many of them were
ready at once to take the oath, and to go back to
their convents. He took care to keep up the ser-
vices just as if they were at Sempringham, and
their sweet chants were heard by the populace
outside : it was a novel thing to hear in London the
voices of a set of canons fresh from the fens of
Lincolnshire. While all about him were in trem-
bling expectation of the king's sentence, he was
unusually gay. It was the instinctive joy of a
heart feeling sure that God was for it, because the
world was against it. In the very court of West-
minster, while all his canons were sitting with long
faces about him, he bought some trinkets of a boy
who was hawking them about, simply to try to
amuse his downcast companions. At length, when
all were expecting the very worst, when Gilbert
himself had made up his mind to die in France, far
away from Sempringham, an order came from
Henry, reserving the cause for his special judgment,
and ordering the Gilbertines meanwhile to be dis-

1 This makes it probable that these events happened in 1164, when
Henry was in Normandy.

134 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

missed. Whether Henry thought that there would
be something absurd in this in the eyes of all
England, banishing a few religious who lived in a
swamp, as disaffected and dangerous persons ; or
whether, to give him his due, he really admired the
unbending character of Gilbert, whom it is expressly
said that he revered ; or whether both together be
true ; at all events so it was, the Prior of Sempring-
ham beat King Henry and his justiciars to boot.
Then, and not till then, he, without any oath,
simply informed the judges that he had not sent
any supplies to the archbishop. This was not an
official act at all, and therefore was quite different
from what had been required of him, and he went
back to Sempringham, thanking God that he had
escaped the snares which had been prepared for
him.

CHAPTER IX

THE REBELLION

GILBERT'S trials are not over yet ; one still awaits
him, and that perhaps the worst of all. Some men
die young, and do a great work before they die ;
others die in middle age, when their powers are
first brought into play, and their work beginning
to thrive ; others again are spared to become old
men, and find their bitterest cross at the last. And
so it was with Gilbert ; he had all his life long
enjoyed the love and esteem of all about him, and
the greatest Saints of the age had been his friends ;
but now he had to endure the suspicions and the
coldness of the good, the shame of evil report, and
the ingratitude of those whom he had nurtured.
It has been said before that the most imperfect
part of the Order was the management of the lay-
brethren ; and at this time, two instances of most
flagrant disorders occurred among them. One of
them is an isolated fact, which would be inexpli-
cable if it were not connected with the licentious
spirit which appeared about this time among this
portion of the Order. It does not appear certain
whether Gilbert ever knew it at all, for it only
occurs in a letter of St. Aelred to one of his private

friends ; and from the desperate and wicked efforts

135

136 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

made to hush it up, and from the fact that the
prior applied to St. Aelred, and not to him, it
seems probable that it never reached his ears. Its
sickening details might therefore, perhaps, have
been spared the reader, and yet they are instruc-
tive from the deep feeling of humiliation which
they leave, or ought to leave, upon the mind. A
monastery had been founded, as has been said
before, in Yorkshire, in a place so dreary and
lonely, and so surrounded with water, that it was
called Watton, or the Wet-town. To this house a
little girl of four years old had been sent by Henry,
Archbishop of York, to be brought up by the nuns.
The poor child had always been unruly, and the
nuns had never been able to do anything with her ;
and when she grew up, though she wore the veil,
she never had the heart of a nun.1 One day the
lay-brethren 2 came into the monastery to do some
work ; the unhappy maiden lingered near, and
watched them intently ; at length her eyes met
those of one of them. It is useless to go through
the steps which led her to crime ; suffice it
that she fell. By-and-by her shame could no

1 The expression is " suscipitur nutrienda." It does not appear
from St. Aelred's narrative that she was offered by the archbishop as
a nun, and thus, according to St. Benedict's rule, obliged irrevocably
to take the veil. Her wearing the habit does not prove it. Not long
before this time, Matilda, who had lived from her infancy in the
Monastery of Wilton, and had been obliged by her aunt to wear the
black veil and habit, had been allowed by St. Anselm to marry
Henry I. Nor again can it be made out from St. Aelred's expressions
that she had made her profession at all. He certainly does not say
that she had.

2 Frater in the Gilbertine rule always means lay-brother, and not
monk.

THE REBELLION 137

longer be concealed, and her partner in wicked-
ness fled away. The nuns perceived what had
taken place, and now comes the most miserable
part of a miserable tale. Instead of taking the
fall of one of the inmates of the house as
matter of humiliation, some of the nuns grew
frantic with rage. They had been proud of
their chastity, as giving them honour in the sight
of men, and now they began to imagine that the
finger of scorn would be pointed at them. Instead
of rejoicing that by the dispensation of God without
their fault, they were despised by men as sinners,
as had happened to our blessed Lord, they mur-
mured against God. A party of them cruelly beat
and loaded with chains the wretched girl. Their
rule obliged them to confine her, but they might
have comforted her in her prison, and tried to win
her back to Christ. Their next act was to get, by
stratagem, the partner of her guilt into their power,
and to execute upon him a sanguinary and horrible
vengeance. Instead of trusting that their own purity
would be asserted by him who saved St. Agnes
from the place of shame, they devised a scheme of
fraud in order to conceal the event altogether. It
is needless to go into the details of their wicked-
ness ; it is enough that they imposed on St. Aelred,
and persuaded him that the girl had repented,
and had been miraculously delivered, and that
the chains had dropped from her hands. It is re-
markable that they did not send for Gilbert to be
witness to the miracle, instead of St. Aelred ; they
probably thought that they could not impose upon
him. But however this be, so runs the tale, and

138 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

a miserable tale it is, which may make any one
tremble who is disposed to pride himself upon his
austerities or his purity, forgetting that without
charity they are nothing worth. These nuns of
Watton were firm and zealous rather for their own
honour than for the Lord, and were betrayed into
a terrible system of deceit, which now rises up in
judgment against them with posterity.

As far as the history of the Order is concerned,
this falls in with the account given of the rebellion
of the lay-brethren in Gilbert's old age. It was a
hard matter to keep in order so many strong and
hardy peasants. It required the entire Cistercian
system to do so, where every monk was in his way
a farmer, and it could not be effected by a few
canons, who were literary men. Accordingly, it
was found that Hodge, the smith, and Gerard, the
weaver, had organised a conspiracy among the lay-
brethren, to procure a mitigation of the rule. They
began to think that, after all, a little more eating
and drinking, and a little less austerity and psalm-
singing, would make life more easy and pleasant.
It was soon discovered that they were not the chief
promoters of the disobedience of the brethren.
Hodge and Gerard were among the lowest of the
number ; the former had been taken from the road-
side, by Gilbert, when a beggar boy, with his father
and brothers, and had been taught the trade of a
smith. Their defection would therefore not have
been dangerous, but mention is made of two others,
to whom Gilbert had entrusted the chief care of
the lay-brethren, and these appear to have secretly
taken advantage of the vagabond propensities of the

THE REBELLION 139

smith and the weaver to obtain a mitigation of
the rule. Several of the brethren, headed by these
two worthies, the weaver and the smith, refused
to work, and went about spreading calumnies
against the canons of the Order. Gilbert, in order
to stop the growing disaffection, excommunicated
the chief offenders, and required of the rest an
oath that they should in future keep to what
they had vowed in their profession.1 There must
have been some clever men among these lay-
brethren ; it was an unusual thing to make the
profession over again, unless there was reason to
suppose that the first profession was invalid. An
abbot could not exact it, and Gilbert seems to have
overstept his powers 2 in requiring what was equiva-
lent to a second profession. The lay-brethren knew
this, and while some of them left the monastery and
went all over England maligning the canons, these
two, Hodge and Gerard, were sent to Rome to
demand justice in the name of the rest. Strange
that two runaway brethren, a smith and a weaver,
should have the power of obtaining an audience
from the supreme pontiff ! but it suits well the
Head of the Church to hear the complaint of the
poor as well as the great. Not only did they apply
for redress, but they obtained an order in their
favour, and returned in triumph to Sempringham.

1 This is gathered from St. Thomas of Canterbury's letter, Ep. ii. 69,
and also from the letter of the Bishop of Norwich, quoted in Dugdale,
after the Gilbertine rule. The whole account is very confused, and all
that can be done is to put it together in the best way of which it is
capable.

2 Quod nulla, sicut audivimus, religionis institutio exigere consuevit.
— St. Thomas, ubi sup.

140 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

Technically they may have been right, but Gilbert,
in a few words, quoted from him by his biographer,
calls it "a cruel mandate," and so it was; all
authority was of course at once broken up in the
Order, and now the lay-brethren were prepared to
go all lengths in their attempts to obtain their
demands. Gilbert, distressed as he was at the
verdict given by his Holiness, obeyed it in every
point. It was a trying time ; mortified pride, a
just indignation at ingratitude, his sense of what was
best for the Order, which he had raised, and all that
complicated feeling, so well expressed by " being
hurt," would have prompted him to treat the
offenders harshly. But he obeyed the Pope, and
took them back into the Order.

The brethren now in a body demanded a miti-
gation of the rule ; but here they found him inflex-
ible. He did not consider whether the rule was too
strict or not ; it appears afterwards that he did think
it too severe ; but that was not the question then,
the brethren asked for it in a wrong way, and they
must submit before anything could be done. His
old enemies, Hodge and Gerard, elated by their
victory at Rome, now broke all bounds ; they
pilfered the community, and with the spoils bought
two fine horses, on which they rode about the
country, going where they would, and publishing
everywhere the most atrocious falsehoods against
the canons. At the same time the rest of the lay-
brethren prosecuted their cause with vigour ; Gil-
bert, in his old age, had to drag his worn-out
body from tribunal to tribunal to hear the cause
judged. Here he had the right side of the ques-

THE REBELLION 141

tion ; he was their prior, and he alone could release
them from the professions which they had made to
him ; the Pope indeed who had confirmed the Order,
might revoke his confirmation, but, till then, no
bishop could make him alter the rule ; he could
only make him observe it. Many bishops tried to
persuade him to mitigate the rule, but he was
inflexible ; they must first submit to him. But it
was a dreadful trial for Gilbert to have the con-
sciousness that vague reports were afloat in the
world against the reputation of his canons. The
Order was of such a nature that the world was sure
to receive with willing ears whatever was said
against it. The bitterest cross, however, to Gilbert
must have been the displeasure of the exiled Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, of him whom he so loved, for
whom he had risked so much. St. Thomas could
only hear vague reports across the sea ; again the
former verdict obtained at Rome, was a fact against
the prior, and the subsequent conduct of the lay-
brethren looked as if they had never been received
back at all into the community, since the Pope's
mandate. He, therefore, wrote to Gilbert a letter of
grave rebuke. His affection for him is evident
throughout; "God knoweth," he says, "that we
love thee with sincere charity in Christ ; " and he
calls the Order "the fruits of our labour," as though
he identified himself with Gilbert. But he com-
mands him strictly to do his best to call back the
brethren who are scattered abroad, and accuses him
of disobeying the Apostolic See ; and he advises
him to mitigate the rule, lest after his days his work
should perish.

142 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

Poor Gilbert ! good and bad were against him.
He could not ride abroad without feeling that the
finger of scorn might be pointed at him and his
train, in consequence of the calumnies of the false
brethren. But, unlike the nuns of Watton, he took
it all patiently, because it had come upon him in
the way of God's providence. He humbled himself
and acknowledged that he deserved it all, and
thanked God for the affliction, for it taught him to
love none on earth too well. He was now on the
verge of the grave ; all his life long he had been
honoured, and it would now do him good to be
despised. At the same time he felt sure that God
would clear up the innocence of his canons ; and
so it was ; Hodge and Gerard, in the course of
their wanderings on the backs of their high-mettled
palfreys, fell into grievous immoralities, and their
flagrant licentiousness turned all men against them.
There was immediately a reaction in favour of the
canons, as there always is sooner or later in favour
of those who have been unjustly treated. There is
a retributive justice in public opinion, which, in
the long run, rights itself, and repairs its own mis-
chief. Men opened their eyes to the holiness of
the Order, and soon after, Gilbert had the satisfac-
tion of seeing the unruly brethren submit them-
selves unconditionally, all except friend Hodge,
who persisted in his vices to the end. The brethren
only humbly begged of Gilbert to mitigate the rule
as he thought fit. Then, and not till then, after he
had given the kiss of peace to the penitent, he
promised that "in tempering whatever was too
rigorous, and in correcting the statutes, he should

THE REBELLION 143

in all things be guided by the authority of his Lord-
ship the Pope, and the counsel of religious men."
Gilbert was now rewarded for his patience ; it often
happens that men step forward at the end of a
contest, who, if they had only shown themselves at
the beginning, might have saved a great deal of
trouble, and it may be, that God so wills it for the
perfecting of His Saints. So it happened in this
case ; many of the English bishops, especially those
who lived near the seats of the Order, now wrote to
the Pope in favour of Gilbert. One of these letters,
that of the Bishop of Norwich, has been preserved,
and is so striking a testimony in favour of the
Order, that it will be well to quote it at length.

" To the most holy father and sovereign pontiff
Alexander, William, Bishop of Norwich, the servant
of his Holiness, sendeth greeting, and obedience
. . . Gilbert, of Sempringham, both from his near
neighbourhood to me, as well as from the renown
of his sanctity, for which he is so eminent, cannot
be unknown to me. His soul is the dwelling of
wisdom, and he draws from the fountains of the
Holy Spirit those waters which he knows so well
how to pour into the ears of others. In winning
and retaining souls for God, he is so zealous and
successful, that when I compare myself with him,
I am ashamed of my own slothfulness, and it seems
as if the prophet Esaias were chiding such as I
am, when he says, ' Be ashamed, O Sidon, saith
the sea.' Among his nuns, of whom he hath
gathered for God a multitude greater than I can
number, there burn such a fervid zeal for religion,
and careful love of chastity, and so faithfully do

144 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

they keep apart from seeing or conversing with
men, that they realise that Scripture which saith,
' My beloved is for me, and I for him, who feedeth
among the lilies.' Of his canons, whose innocence
I hear has been calumniated to your clemency, I
call God and mine o\vn soul to witness, I never
remember to have heard a single word of ill fame,
and I could not but have heard it from their near
neighbourhood to me, and from the multitude of
persons who come to me on business. All access
to the nuns is so entirely forbidden, that not even
the prior has general license to see or speak to any
of them, and in the reception of the Holy Eucharist,
neither priest nor recipient know one another.
Each portion of the community has its own house,
its own cloister and church, its own houses for
sleeping, meditation and prayer. From his lay-
brethren he only requires that they keep inviolate
that mode of life, which they have professed, and
this in my presence they have promised with much
devotion to do. He does not presume to change
what has been confirmed by your authority and
that of my predecessors, and what they, after long
trial, have promised and vowed to observe ; lest if
he changed it, he might be open to the charge of
laxity and presumption. All I wish is, that this
lawsuit, which certain lukewarm men of cold
charity have entered against him, should be referred
to the judgment and witness of men who have
a zeal for God according to knowledge, that they
may discover the truth by inspecting the privileges
granted by the Apostolic See, and by the clear
examination of facts, men who have known and

THE REBELLION 145

experienced what it is to observe a rule without
tiring of the religious life, or looking back after
putting their hands to the plough. A man worn
out by age and more full of virtues than of days,
ought not to be treated so, that through discourage-
ment he should swerve from his purpose to the
detriment of many souls, but be rather encouraged
and treated with gentleness, that he may persevere
to keep alive the salvation which God has worked
by him in our land. Daily does the wheat grow
thin in the garner of the Lord, and the chaff is
multiplied. May God preserve your Holiness in
safety for His Church. Farewell."

Besides these bishops Gilbert found a more
extraordinary advocate, and that was Henry II.
At one period of the contest with the archbishop,
it was his policy to conciliate the monastic orders ;
their names were useful to him in his desperate
struggle.1 Another reason why he liked the Gilber-
tine Order was, that it was purely English. Henry,
like all our kings, loved not the spiritual jurisdiction
of any foreign prelate, abbot or potentate. For
this reason he disliked the Cistercians ; in the latter
part of this contest, it suited his purpose to cajole
them, but when the- archbishop was sheltered at
Pontigny, he wrote to authorities abroad and threat-
ened to turn every Cistercian out of England. The
Gilbertines, therefore, were an Order that did not
interfere with his purposes. Besides this, how-
ever, it appears that he had a real reverence and re-
gard for Gilbert. Henry Plantagenet had his good

1 Ep. iii. 29 ; iv. 38.
VOL. IV. K

146 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

moments, and under good guidance he might have
been other than he was. He at one time patronised
the Carthusians, and procured the appointment of
St. Hugh to the diocese of Lincoln. In the same
way he could not help admiring the unworldliness
of Gilbert. He therefore wrote to the Pope and
threatened to resume whatever he himself or his
nobles had given to the Order, if the institute was
changed by the machinations of the rustics, as he
called them, who were the bondmen of the soil.
Henry was imperious even when he did good ;
however, Alexander could not resist so many testi-
monies in favour of the Gilbertines, and sent a
mandate to Gilbert forbidding any one to attempt
to alter the institute without his consent, and em-
powering him and his successors, the priors of
Sempringham, to correct and amend the statutes
with the help of the other priors of the order.
Alexander added also various privileges to the
Order, and confirmed all that his predecessors had
granted.

CHAPTER X

THE DEATH OF GILBERT

THE gaps left in his narrative by Gilbert's bio-
grapher have made the various chapters of his life
more like detached scenes than a continuous history;
or rather it would be more true to say, that his life
was ordinarily one of peace and harmony, passed
in the calmness of the convent, so that for many
years he was hidden with God, and history has
nothing to do with him. Sometimes he is called
forth for some special purpose and he plays his
part before the world and all men gaze upon him,
and then he goes back to his cloister and is no
longer heard of. It is all like a sweet and low
chant which cannot be heard outside the walls
of the church, except when sometimes it swells
into bolder and more majestic music. We are now,
however, come to the last scene of all. Gilbert, as
we have seen, outlived one generation of saints ;
but before he died, another with whom he had
been connected had now passed away. St.
Thomas of Canterbury had won his crown nine-
teen years before Gilbert's death ; and he was at
least eighty years old when the Saint was martyred.
After all his troubles he spent these last days in
peace ; when the ear heard him, then it blessed

M7

148 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

him ; when the eye saw him, it gave witness to him.
He was revered all over England ; and we have
seen, says his biographer, bishops on their knees
begging for his blessing, yea, and bishops from
foreign lands, which the echoes of his fame had
reached, coming to beg for a portion of his gar-
ments to carry back with them to their own lands
as relics. But the strangest homage which he
received was, when King Henry would not allow
him to come to his court on the business of the
Order, but went himself to his lodgings with his
peers, and humbly begged for his benediction.
The scourge of the monks of Canterbury must
have done its work when Henry bowed so low.
Eleanor too, his unhappy queen, loved to bring
to him her princely boys, that they might kneel
down and be blessed by him. Henry seems to
have had an almost superstitious reverence for
him ; when his sons revolted against him, and his
queen was imprisoned by him for her crimes,
when poor Henry's heart was broken, and the
sins of his life all came upon him, then a mes-
senger came to tell him that Gilbert was dead.
The king groaned deeply, and said, "Well do I
know that he has passed away from the earth,
for that is the reason that all these misfortunes have
found me out." A man who had lived through the
whole of the twelfth century from its very begin-
ning, could not but be an object of reverence. It
was a wonderful sight to see this old man with his
body bent with age, his bones scarce cleaving to his
flesh, and his whole frame pallid and wasted, yet
still capable of managing the affairs of his Order,

THE DEATH OF GILBERT 149

and going about with his eye undimmed, and his
mind as vigorous as ever. At length, however, his
sight failed him and he became quite blind before
he died. Then he sent for Roger, Prior of Malton,
and put the whole management of the Order into
his hands. Still, however, the spirit rose above the
body ; he could not ride, but he was borne in a
litter from place to place. His brethren were very
anxious that he should take his meals in his bed-
room, for the refectory was a long way off, and
there were some steps to be mounted at the
entrance. He, however, never would consent to
this arrangement, and said : " Gilbert will never set
an example to his successors of eating good things
in his room." So every day he was carried by some
of the brethren into the refectory. Even in this
extreme old age, when his limbs hardly held to-
gether, he kept his old practice of watching at
night, and would rise when all were asleep and
kneel by the side of his bed ; and when once he
was discovered in this posture by his brethren, he
half chid them, as though they had not made his
bed comfortably the evening before, to account for
his being found in this strange posture. When his
external sense had failed him, the eye of his soul
was the more fixed upon God, and tears often ran
down his cheeks as he thought upon his Saviour
and His infinite mercies. He would often speak
on spiritual things with the brethren, but his words
were few and short, and he soon relapsed into
silence, which was often broken by strong prayers
and ejaculations which burst from him, "How long,
Lord, wilt Thou forget me for ever?" "Woe is

150 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

me, for the time of my sojourning is prolonged ! "
And if he ever thought that he had spoken more
than he ought, he would at once kneel down and
repeat the confession of the Church, humbly beg-
ging to be absolved. In this way he lived on,
hardly holding to earth either by body or soul, till
he was more than a hundred years old ; at length,
early in the year 1189, he felt his end to be ap-
proaching, and he sent letters to all his priories to
beg that prayers should be offered for him, leaving
his blessing behind him, and absolving all from
their sins against the rule, at the same time solemnly
warning all those who should quarrel with their
brethren and break the peace of the Order, that
this absolution would profit them nothing. He was
then at Cadney, one of the lonely island monasteries
of the Order, and so near his end was he thought to
be, that he received extreme unction, and the last
rites of the Church. But he rallied, and the dying
Saint still crossed the waters which surrounded the
island, and his chaplains bore their precious burden
to Sempringham, through lonely places, lest they
should be forcibly detained by any one who might
wish Gilbert's bones to lie in his church. All the
priors of the Order had time to assemble and come
to him. Here he was lying, as was thought, in a
sort of stupor on his bed, and no one was with him
but the canon who eventually succeeded him as
prior. He was conscious of no one's presence,
when he was heard murmuring low to himself the
Antiphone in the service for a confessor, " He hath
dispersed abroad, and given to the poor." Then,
he continued in the same low tone, as though he

THE DEATH OF GILBERT 151

were expounding it in the church, " Yes, he hath
dispersed to many persons ; he gave, he did not
sell ; it was to the poor, too, not to the rich." And
then he subjoined as if to the canon who was with
him, " It is thy place to do so now." He continued
in this half-unconscious state through the night, till,
as the morning dawned, and the convent was sing-
ing the lauds for Saturday, and the reader's voice
repeated, "The night is far spent, the day is at
hand," the eternal morning dawned on the blessed
Saint, and his soul passed into the hands of its
Creator.

This was on Saturday, the 4th of February
1189. Twelve years after, on the Eve of Holy
Cross Day, 1202, a vast concourse assembled at
Sempringham to witness the translation of his
relics to a more honourable place in the church
of the Priory. He had wrought no miracles in
his lifetime, but when he was dead God was
pleased, through his intercession, to heal many
who came to kneel at his tomb. In the beginning
of the year, Innocent III. had canonised him, after
a judicial inquiry into his merits and the miracles
wrought by his body ; and now the Archbishop
of Canterbury, with other bishops, and many an
abbot, came to translate his relics. Then the
body of St. Gilbert was raised on the shoulders
of England's chief nobles, and in solemn proces-
sion was borne to the place which it was to
occupy. Truly, God doth bring down the mighty
from their seat, and exalt the humble and meek.

Now that we have gone through St. Gilbert's
life, for so we may now call him, it seems hard to

152 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

us to realise that such a person ever existed. We
who live in the world, whose eye glances from one
object of affection to another, and is taken by all,
whose ears are tickled with praise and pained by
blame, who set up for intellect and talent, if we
have it, and fancy that we have it, if we have it not,
whose highest austerity consists in temperance, and
highest charity in good-humour, we can hardly do
more than gaze on a character like Gilbert's, and
wonder if after all it be true. Those of us who
rise above this standard, in so far as they rise
above it, may enter into the notion of a saint. But
to us, commonplace Christians, it is only a beautiful
dream of something which is past long ago, and
which is nothing to us. And this sort of feeling is
a dangerous one and likely to increase, when lives
of saints take the place of romances and fairy tales.
To deny or not to realise the existence of Christian
Saints, is apt to make a wide gap in Christian
faith. They who consider the Saints in a dreamy
way, will hardly be able to do more than dream
that there has been upon earth one, who was and
is Man-God, for the lives of saints are shadows
of His, and help to interpret His actions who is
incomprehensible. They who look upon the saints
as mere personages in religious romance, will be apt
to look on Christianity as a beautiful philosophy.
St. Gilbert was a real being of flesh and blood,
the parish priest of Sempringham; his institute is
a fact in the history of the English Church ; it
was raised up by God as an opponent of the lust
which was the especial wickedness of the day. It
saved a great many souls which might otherwise

THE DEATH OF GILBERT 153

have perished ; it raised many others to an extra-
ordinary degree of sanctity. It is, therefore, a fact
which stares us in the face and of which we must
make the best we can ; a vast number of persons,
amounting to fifteen hundred, did give up all the
joys of home, and refuse to give place in their
hearts to the strong affections which entwine round
the hearts of those who are married, in order to
live in poverty a hard and austere life. In this case,
too, all allowances are made ; the defects of the
Order are exposed ; the temptations peculiar to
monastic life are seen clearly ; the nuns of Watton,
it is true, did become savage old maids instead of
virgins of Christ ; the Order did not spread much
after the death of the founder, and, unlike the great
monastic institutions of the Continent, never out of
the country which gave it birth ; finally, it appears
in after times to have degenerated. Yet, with all
these drawbacks, it is true that St. Gilbert did a
great work, and one at which kings and queens
stopped to look, for it forced itself upon their
notice. Even the impure Eleanor loved to think
of the institute of holy virgins, and the tyrant
Henry bowed before its founder. And all this was
effected by a man not so unlike externally to one of
ourselves. He went to Paris as we might go to
Oxford or Cambridge, and he came back and took
a family living and jwas ordained upon it. His
character, too, as we have said before, was not one
of what is called romance. He was distinguished
by a quiet waiting upon the will of God, and a most
energetic and unbending execution of it, when he
had once ascertained it. He remained in the

154 ST. GILBERT, CONFESSOR

Bishop of Lincoln's palace much longer than he
wished, because though utterly uncongenial to his
tastes and habits, he would not break away from
where God had placed him. At length the arch-
deaconry was offered him ; this was too much and
he went away. All the vast good which he effected,
was the result of natural circumstances. The in-
stitution of his Order was for the sake of seven
maidens, whom Providence put into his way, and
to whom God gave grace to desire perfection under
his guidance, in his parish. His application to St.
Bernard, and the appointment of canons, arose
naturally out of the increase of the monasteries.
Enthusiasm such as his is seldom found connected
with such quiet waiting upon God. And this part
of his character all may imitate. Not every man is
called upon to found a monastic order and govern
it ; nor to take the part of a holy archbishop, like
St. Thomas, under peril of a king's anger ; but all
must quietly wait upon God in times of darkness,
and keep their souls free from inordinate affection,
and be ready to follow the gentle leading of God's
will wherever it may lead them, even to the most
painful sacrifice. Very few of us can be monks
and nuns ; but all are called upon to live above the
world, and by daily self-sacrifice to train themselves
to give up at a moment's notice whatever is most
dear. And they especially who have apparently
least duties, unmarried persons, should wait calmly
on the Providence of God, ready to accept whatever
lot in life He may prepare for them, wishing for
nothing, and hoping for nothing but what He wills.
Meanwhile, they have more time than others for

THE DEATH OF GILBERT 155

frequent prayer and for long and steady contem-
plation of our blessed Lord, in the great mysteries
of the faith. Then, as the wonders of heaven, by
God's grace, grow upon them, they will see the
excellence of the good part of Mary, to sit at the
Lord's feet and to hear the words which He speaks
to the soul. Arid in proportion as they realise the
Incarnation of the Lord, they will love more and
more to contemplate the saints, and especially St.
Mary, for a reverence for her is inseparable from
that right faith in the Humanity of the Son of God,
which we must all believe and confess. They will
learn that the high honour in which the Church has
ever held holy virginity, is a necessary portion of
Christian doctrine, and not a rhapsody peculiar to
any age. It is a feeling which has seized on minds
of every stamp from the most matter-of-fact to the
most imaginative, if only illuminated by God's
grace. St. Gilbert's character could not come
under either of these classes ; besides the all-endur-
ing energy of the homely Saxon, he had a dash of
the adventurous Norman ; and the Holy Spirit had
blended both these discordant elements into one,
as He would in His mercy again blend the spiritual
character of the English nation, if it were not a
stiff-necked people.

NORTHUMBRIAN SAINTS

ST. PAULINUS ST. OSWIN

ST. EDWIN ST. EBBA

ST. ETHEL BURG A ST. ADAMNAN

ST. OSWALD ST. BEGA

THE LIFE OF
ST. PAULINUS

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, A.D. 644

To the ecclesiastical scholar there is something
mournfully striking in the sight of a modern map
of his native country. Travelling northward from
the metropolis, on the western side of the island,
his eye runs through an almost continuous chain of
manufacturing towns, the spiritual destitution of
whose dense population presents problems, both of
a political and ecclesiastical kind, as difficult as they
are distressing, and which seems to stand out the
more distinctly from the background of wealth,
luxury, and refinement created by these very multi-
tudes. On this side there is little to remind us of
the labours of St. Chad or St. Wilfrid. Whereas,
if we look down the eastern shore of England,
the eye is still conducted pleasantly from one holy
home to another, always finding nigh at hand some
monument of old munificence, some beautiful relic
of Catholic ages. Cambridge and Ely, Peterborough
and Lincoln, seem to afford resting-points to the
eye between London and York ; and the view of

that wonderful minster rising far off above the

159

160 ST. PAULINUS,

woody level is most grateful after the unsightly
disorder of those huge towns, which only seems to
typify the moral disorder, the civil discontent and
religious discord of the people within. But we
should be unearnest men indeed if the feelings
excited by such prospects rested in mere anti-
quarian regrets, or were the parents of no worthier
offspring than a few architectural societies, through
whose well-meant labours Catholic ceremonial
might shoot far ahead of Catholic austerity, and so
afford Satan a convenient hold to frustrate the
revival of Catholic truth amongst us. Rather we
would hope by setting forth the deeds of the old
missionary monks and holy founders of these
glorious abbeys to provoke our own generation to
a godly jealousy, and to plead the cause of our
manufacturing districts most effectually by adorn-
ing the memory of those whose peaceful and
conventual cities are after all but so many witnesses
of what the old Saints did against difficulties hardly
less than ours. And especially the monastic char-
acter of the early Saxon Church, by which the
England of ancient times was subdued to the Cross,
may intimate to us that, however lawful it may be
in itself, and, if so be, of primitive warrant, yet a
sturdier weapon than a married clergy can alone
hope to convert (for we may not use a milder
word) the crowded multitudes of modern England.
Such thoughts naturally come to mind when we
prepare to relate the acts of St. Paulinus of York.
From the persecution of Diocletian, during which
the father of Constantine died at York, we pass over
the fortunes of that famous city, till the Easter

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 161

Sunday of 627, when Paulinus baptised St. Edwin
in his rude cathedral of wood, which through the
grateful care of that monarch and the diligence of
St. Oswald grew from its humble beginnings, and
after multiplied changes, additions, and restora-
tions, remains amongst us at this day, acknowledged
as one of the most exquisite ecclesiastical buildings
of Christendom.

The early history of St. Paulinus, before he was
connected with England, is told in few words. He
was in all probability a monk,1 and apparently of
the same house with St. Augustine of Canterbury.
It was in the first year of the seventh century that
the English archbishop sent his two ambassadors,
Lawrence and Peter, to plead with the holy father,
St. Gregory, for fresh labourers in the vineyard ;
and, after a year's delay at Rome, the Pope sent
back the messengers accompanied by twelve new
apostles, many of whom were ordained to shine as
lights in the Saxon Church ; and by holy living and
holy suffering to adorn the doctrine of God their
Saviour in all things. For among the twelve were
Mellittis, Justus, and Paulinus.

Their journey, if we may judge by the Pope's
commendatory letters, partook of that irregularity
which characterised all travelling in religious ages,
when various shrines and places gifted with miracle
attracted the pilgrim to the right or left, especially
when bound on a difficult and perilous enterprise
to extend the Church of Christ. It would seem
that these holy monks (as we have ventured to

i Eum fuisse monachum probabile, at exploratum non est. — Mabill.
Index SS. prgetermiss. in scec. Ben. ii.

VOL. IV. L

162 ST. PAULINUS,

assume that they were) passed by Marseilles,
through a portion of the diocese of Toulouse,
afterwards the scene of the great St. Dominic's
labours among the heretic Albigenses, up the
Saone, northward as far as Metz, and thence to
Paris, where they were commended to the pious
hospitality of King Clothaire, and Brunichildis,
who had been formerly the queenly hostess of
Augustine. They arrived in Kent in 60 i, and
appear to have been honourably received by the
good King Ethelbert, and his consort Adilberga,
to both of whom the Pope had written, comparing
them respectively to Constantine and Helena;
though the personal character of the Saxon king
seems to have had more of earnestness and sterling
worth about it than that of the great emperor.
The comparison, perhaps, was meant for the public
rather than the private character of the king.

Truly the Church of Christ has antiquities of a
more touching sort than those which the regal
succession of any nation has to boast, even as her
spiritual descent is more unbroken. The very
monastic house, from which St. Gregory sent forth
Augustine, and afterwards these new fellow-
labourers, still remains set apart for sacred uses.
With the Coliseum on its right and the gardens
of the Caesars on its left, and almost in view of the
old Church of St. Clement where the Pelagian
heresy, the offspring of a British monk, was formally
condemned, the same site is at this day occupied
by the white-robed Camaldolese. There at this
day the simple-mannered and kind-hearted children
of St. Romuald contemplate in silent austerity the

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 163

mysteries of the Catholic faith, while the solitary
palm-tree on the hill close by stands like a beacon
in the garden of the Passionists, who pray specially
for England. From that same house of St. Gregory,
where his altar and his rude dormitory still exist,
the sixteenth Gregory has been raised to fill the
chair of St. Peter ; yet when he dwells in the lordly
Vatican, it is within the Saxon suburb of Rome, the
Borgo (Burgh) where the English pilgrims once
resided, and within which St. Peter's is included.
Surely one may dwell innocently on these little
things, when our isolation presses heavily upon us ;
it is a relief even for the imagination to play with
names and places which testify conjointly of Eng-
land and of Catholic unity. And we too are, in one
sense, the children of that house, for we are living
on the labours of the monks who came therefrom.
Though fearful storms have swept by, and the
sacrilege of schism is in our ears and before our
eyes, we are struggling to maintain ourselves under
the shadow of the tree which they planted. Woe
unto us if we be not " watchful, and strengthen the
things which remain, that are ready to die," lest
peradventure our works be not " found perfect
before God."

The next twenty-four years of Paulinus's life are
involved in obscurity. He disappears entirely from
our view, or, to speak more wisely, is hidden with
God, till 625. Yet it is not difficult to conjecture
that his days were spent in active toil for the
Church, for he lived among great deeds, and was
an eye-witness of many things which gave con-
sistency and character to the Saxon Church. The

164 ST. PAULINUS,

death of the great St. Gregory would hardly be
imfelt by the Kentish labourers. The Synod of
Augustine's Oak drew a formal line between the
British and the Saxon Christians. The conversion
of King Sebert, the building of Westminster Abbey
and St. Paul's, and the founding of Ely, the erec-
tion of the see of Rochester, and the death of St.
Augustine, were all notable events which mark those
four-and-twenty years in the history of our Church.
But, if it was allowed to St. Paulinus to behold the
Church thus taking shape and gathering strength,
and doubtless himself to aid in the labour, there
were darker scenes of which he was also a witness.
Whether during that unhappy year after the apos-
tacy of the kings Paulinus retired with Justus and
Mellitus, an action which we do not know enough
of to condemn (for those we should sit in judgment
on were saints), or whether he remained with St.
Lawrence, we are not told : but, at all events, on
Eadbald's repentance he would without question
be found in Kent, and during the five years which
succeeded he probably laboured for St. Lawrence.

There are few of the saints in whose lives we do
not find some such unhistorical interval as this ;
and, if it makes no show on the pages of history,
perhaps it may generally have been the most
momentous period of their lives. Whether it has
been spent in ascetic retirement or outward con-
flict, it has often been the season of probation, the
vigil of their Christian knighthood, on which their
whole future depended. Who knows what combats
pass in these mystic deserts, or what gifts are won,
communicating joy and health and sudden alacrity

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 165

to the whole body of Christ ? St. Paul's days were
not wasted in Arabia ; and, to venture further, our
Lord in St. Joseph's house was about His Heavenly
Father's business. To us moderns this peculiarity
in the lives of the saints may suggest very whole-
some thoughts. It rebukes that restless temper
which begins by making all our good unsound,
because it sets up our own will rather than God's
will as the rule of the good we propose to do ; and
ends by an irritable, schismatical, and carnal spirit
of proselytism, and a fretful course of duty self-
imposed, because through disuse it has lost all
faith in its invisible weapons of prayer and fasting
and virginity for Christ's sake. Yet this very charac-
teristic of the saints' lives is, like most other things
about them, singularly Christlike, reminding us of
that silent but pregnant interval of eighteen years
between His disputing with the doctors and His
baptism by St. John, which the Evangelist compre-
hends in the one mystery of His obedience to His
two creatures, St. Mary and St. Joseph, an interval
wherein every day was full of actions which, be-
cause of the Incarnation, were infinite humiliations,
and each one by itself, as Liguori says, therefore
sufficient for the redemption of the world.

It was in the year 625 that the ambassadors of
King Edwin, yet a pagan, arrived in Kent to demand
of King Eadbald the hand of his sister Ethelburga
in marriage. Tempting as was the offer, from
Edwin's fame and his spreading conquests, the
Kentish monarch replied that it was not lawful to
give a Christian virgin in marriage to a heathen,
lest the faith and sacraments of the Heavenly King

IBDABY a MARY'S COLLEGE

166 ST. PAULINUS,

should be profaned by the company of a king who
knew not the worship of the true God. Edwin
was a man of no common temper, and with the
natural sympathy which great minds have with
high feelings took no offence at the rough answer.
He sent a second time to promise that he would
take no steps against the Christian faith, but that
he would grant to the princess, her priests and her
whole retinue, the free exercise of their own re-
ligion, and that should the new faith be found on
examination holier and more worthy of God he
would himself embrace it. This reply was con-
sidered satisfactory. Eadbald and Ethelburga might
think it was a case to which the Apostle's rule would
apply, that the believing wife should sanctify the
unbelieving husband. Moreover, it would of course
be remembered by both of them that it was a
woman who had paved the way for the introduc-
tion of the Gospel into Kent, and that by her
marriage with an unbeliever. And, doubtless, they
acted under the advice of St. Justus, their spiritual
pastor. He would view it in the light of a means
for amplifying the Holy Church, and for such an
end Ethelburga would be willing to venture her
worldly comfort by placing herself in so difficult a
position as that of a Christian queen in a heathen
court.

It now became the duty of St. Justus to fix upon
some new and worthy spiritual father, to whose
care he should commit the Kentish princess, to
guide her along the difficult way which for Christ's
sake she was prepared to tread. He chose Paulinus,
which would imply that he had already perceived

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 167

in him some eminent qualifications for positions of
trust and difficulty. In compliance with the recom-
mendation of St. Gregory, given so far back as 601,
Paulinus was ordained Bishop of York, which See
was to enjoy metropolitan honours. Of the life
and demeanour of Paulinus in the heathen court
we know next to nothing. But from what Bede
says it would appear that he did not confine him-
self to building up Ethelburga and her Christian
attendants in their most holy faith, but also laboured
zealously as a missionary bishop. His labours at
that time were not blessed with any great success ;
for while Bede testifies of him that he laboured long
time in the Word, yet he adds that it fell out as the
Apostle said, "The god of this world blinded the
minds of them that believed not, lest the light of
the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine unto
them." It is probable, however, that the exertions
of Paulinus were silently bringing things into that
mature state, which afterwards made the conver-
sion of the Northumbrians almost national ; for
the very language used at the Conference of God-
mundingham implies that the false religion had
been for some length of time confronted with the
Gospel, so that room had been given for a general
scepticism to get root, and gain ground even among
the priests.

Meanwhile Pope Boniface was not unmindful of
his office of universal bishop, nor inclined to
neglect the new church of St. Gregory's founding.
In this same year he addressed letters to Edwin
and Ethelburga, both of them noble compositions,
and well deserving a place in that magnificent

i68 ST. PAULINUS,

collection of Christian documents, the pontifical
epistles.

It is not a little touching to contemplate the
affectionate earnestness of these two letters, and to
reflect upon the high sense of duty which prompted
and sustained so minute a vigilance over the in-
terests of the Gospel throughout the breadth of
Western Christendom. The marriages of the little
kings of the Saxon heptarchy, with its fluctuating
policy and its shifting boundaries, were not over-
looked at Rome. "The piety of Boniface," says
Alford, l " passed the Alps and ocean that he might
hasten the reward of faith in the northern part of
the island, and that the provincials of Alia, whom
Rome had erewhile seen in her forum, might have
a new commerce with the chief city. It was not,
therefore, Gaul, it was not Spain, it was not Ger-
many, it was not the nearer inhabitants of Italy,
who were anxious for the salvation of the North-
umbrians, for they had not the bowels of a parent ;
but it was Rome, to whom Christ had given the
prefecture of His sheep in Peter the chief. She,
though more remote in place, yet by the privilege
of her dignity, by the necessity of her office, and
finally by the excellency of her love, was nearer to
us in this kind of affection. Hence the reader may
clearly understand who is the genuine mother of
this island, and to whom it owes the birth of faith,
to eastern Asia, or to western Rome. Truly, if she
only, in Solomon's judgment, was the mother,
whose bowels were moved, then this pious care

1 ii. 216, ed. Leod.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 169

lest Britain should perish shows that, not of Asia
or of Greece, but of Rome only ought we to say,
' She is the mother thereof.' "

It was now the second year of Paulinus's residence
at the Northumbrian court. The interesting events
of this year and the following (627), so well known
through the touching narrative of St. Bede, belong
rather to the life of St. Edwin, than of Paulinus,
notwithstanding that they are among the most
important which befell the holy bishop. The
attempted murder of St. Edwin, the queen's safe
delivery on the night of Easter Sunday, the king's
victory over Quichelm, and the unlooked-for fulfil-
ment of a heavenly vision, as they chiefly illustrate
the personal character of St. Edwin, so they are
related in his life. It is sufficient to say here, that
the infant princess Eanflede, with twelve of her
family, were the first-fruits of the Northumbrian
mission, and were baptized on Whitsunday in 626;
and that on Easter Sunday (627) King Edwin
was himself baptized by Paulinus in his wooden
cathedral, dedicated to St. Peter.

The six years which intervened between the
baptism and the death of St. Edwin were in a
Christian point of view most important to the
north of England. It would seem as though the
King made continual progresses through his do-
minions, taking Paulinus with him, and lending to
his missionary labours the support of his presence
and favour. First, going northward, we hear of
the bishop being compelled to stop six-and-thirty
days at one place in Northumberland, catechising
the new converts, and baptizing them in the river

170 ST. PAULINUS,

Glen; near the village of Yeverin, where Edwin
had a country-seat. But it would seem from the
narrative of Bede that he reaped a yet greater
harvest in Yorkshire itself, where the pure and
beautiful river Swale was his font, in whose rocky
pools near Catterick Bridge, anciently Cataract,
he baptized great multitudes of the Deiri, turning
them, according to St. Gregory's prediction, from
the wrath of God (de ira Dei). At Campodunum,
where Edwin's palace stood, Paulinus built a
church of stone, which was burnt by the pagans
who killed St. Edwin. It was dedicated to St.
Alban, for England had Christian antiquities even
to the companions of St. Augustine ; and Camden
speaks of the black burnt appearance of the stones
remaining in his day.

The conversion of the East Saxons and their king
Eorpwald was brought about by the pious industry
of Edwin, and seems to have taken place no long
time1 after his baptism. But the year after was
marked by a still more signal success attending the
preaching of Paulinus, in the conversion of Blecca,
the Governor of Lincoln, and the introduction of
the Gospel into the parts south of the H umber. At
Lincoln he built another church of stone, of beauti-
ful workmanship, which was roofless in Bede's time,
but visited by the faithful because of the power of
miracle which resided there. From Lincolnshire
the holy bishop extended his missionary labours
into Nottinghamshire, baptizing great multitudes in

1 Father Cressy, however, puts it under 632, after Alford ; yet the
narrative of Bede would seem to bring it nearer to Edwin's baptism,
and as if in the fervour of his recent conversion.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 171

the river Trent, and consecrating a church to our
blessed Lady at Southwell.1 And thus our Saint
became the father of three famous ecclesiastical
buildings, which have come down to our times, the
cathedrals of York and Lincoln, and the minster of
Southwell.

The new church at Lincoln, even in its infancy,
witnessed a scene of no little interest in English
Church history, the consecration of Honorius, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, by St. Paulinus. It seems
scarcely possible, in the conflict of authorities, to
settle in what year this took place. Baronius is
clearly right in saying that the pall was not sent to
Paulinus before 633 ; and, apparently for the mere
purpose of avoiding a difficulty, Harpsfield, Parker
and Godwin fix the death of St. Justus to 634 ; but,
as appears from the Pope's letter to St. Edwin in
633, Honorius was already Archbishop of Canter-
bury, and the pall is sent to the two archbishops at
once. Justus died, according to the most probable
account, in 628, and without supposing a vacancy
of five years, it seems to agree better with the
several narratives to fix the consecration of Hono-
rius to 629 ; and either the original instructions
from Rome, on which St. Justus acted in consecra-
ting Paulinus, or fresh commands sent on the death
of St. Justus, may have warranted Paulinus in con-
secrating Honorius, and the Pope's formal rule in
633, that when either of the archbishops returned
to his Maker the survivor should ordain another in
his room, may have been rather providing for a

1 It is Camden's conjecture that the Tiovulfingacestir of Bede was
Southwell.

172 ST. PAULINUS,

difficulty already experienced than a mere rule
enacted for the first time, and apart from circum-
stances. But, however the question of the date
may stand, the fact is undoubted that the first Arch-
bishop of York consecrated the fifth Archbishop of
Canterbury in the new and beautiful stone church
of Lincoln.

How briefly, and almost abruptly, does history
appear to sum up in its straightforward narrative
the work of six long years ! Yet to monks, accus-
tomed to hear what we should think the dry pages
of the Martyrology read during their frugal meal,
the list of names and places and simple facts could
supply ample matter for devotional meditation.
The mould in which the lives of all the Saints is
cast, notwithstanding an apparently infinite diver-
sity, is, after all, one and the same, the likeness
of their Lord ; and to men whose thoughts were
conversant with that all day, each fact in the
Martyrology was, so to speak, a key to itself. It
opened out long trains of mingled thought and
prayer, and cast the reader and the hearer more
completely into the times and position of the Saint
than laboured accuracy of description or animation
of style could possibly do. To us, unfortunately,
the connection between our own days and those of
the Saints has been rudely sundered ; and there
is a romance about the past which goes far to
destroy the real application of its ensamples to our-
selves. Yet let any one, by a steady effort, realise
to himself the rough, tiresome, commonplace diffi-
culties which Paulinus had to overcome in evan-
gelising our northern counties, the rudeness of the

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 173

times, the ignorance of the people, the inveteracy
of their superstitions, their cold and unimpressive
temper, so discouraging to a hot-hearted Roman,
the want of clergy, the absence of all the consola-
tions which a missionary derives either from the
splendid ceremonial of the Church, or in these days
from rapid communication with the faithful in
other parts. These, and a host of others which
these suggest, could only be overcome by the single-
minded energy of earnest faith ; and if multitudes,
almost whole towns, exist now in those same
northern counties to be rescued either from the de-
lusions of schism, or even a neglected state of
heathenism, the example of Paulinus may be of
service to ourselves. A modern priest in a modern
parish is first startled and then disheartened by the
complicated errors of doctrine and discipline, and
the end mostly is that he becomes entangled in
some part of the vicious system round him, and, as
though the world's eye paralysed him, learns to
acquiesce in the wretched, low views and principles
which prevail about him. Now, however seemingly
different his outward position is, nevertheless it is
substantially the same with that of a missionary ;
and faith in the Church system, even the little faith
which he has, brings about changes which surprise
himself. But they who are tied to the world are
tied to the times, and the doctrine that this or that
is unfit for these times eats out the very heart of
faith. Hence it is that the most successful mis-
sionaries have generally been monks. Monks do
not believe in the world ; its ways do not fetter
them; its example does not overawe them. They

174 ST. PAULINUS,

do what we should call odd unpractical things, and,
strange to say, these very things succeed through
the hearty goodwill with which they are pushed
forward ; while the more intelligible discretion of
their contemporaries receives the admiration of the
world, and bequeaths nothing to posterity. Their
singularity, like Samson's locks, appears to contain
their strength.

Unlike the labours of many of the missionary
Saints, the toils of St. Paulinus do not seem to have
been accompanied, so far as we know, by any
copious display of miraculous power ; at least not
in any such way as to have come strikingly forward
to account for the great success of his preaching.
The conversion of St. Edwin did certainly involve a
supernatural knowledge of past circumstances ; and
the way in which St. Bede mentions the fame of
the ruined walls of Lincoln Church, as gifted with a
miraculous influence, would lead one to connect it
with Paulinus.

But the time of his labours in the north was fast
drawing to a close. A rebellion, for so it is termed
by Bede, broke out against St. Edwin, headed by
Cadwalla, the savage king of the Britons, whose
Christian profession seems only to have exasperated
him the more against the Saxons ; and Penda, a
man of the Mercian blood royal, and an idolater.
A battle took place at Heathfield, near the banks of
the Don. It wras fatal to St. Edwin, who was slain
there, and extremely disastrous to the Church ; for
it would appear as though it led to a complete
persecution of the Northumbrian Christians. One
would have imagined that Paulinus would have

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 175

remained with his Church, specially where there
seemed so good a chance of winning the crown
of martyrdom, for which the saints in all ages were
athirst. This, however, was not the case. Revert-
ing to his first office of guardian of Ethelburga, he
took ship under the escort of Bassus, one of St.
Edwin's most valiant warriors, and sailed into Kent.
We have not enough information left us to decide
upon the grounds of his retiring from the persecu-
tion. We know from the position he afterwards
held in Kent that he was fully justified in what he
did, and that his contemporaries saw nothing in
his conduct inconsistent with his sanctity ; and, of
course, as in the case of the patriarchs of the Old
Testament, we should in every instance fear to pass
a censure upon any one whom the veneration of
Catholics has canonised. The question of courting
or shunning persecution was, we know, debated
very early ; and undoubted saints in quite primi-
tive times adopted opposite lines of action. The
example of our blessed Lord would seem on the
whole to favour the shunning of persecution ; yet
as the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness to
be tempted, and as another time He set His face
steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem, so doubtless the
inward illumination of His Spirit guides His saints
both when they advance and when they retire,
as is so beautifully exemplified in the lives of St.
Polycarp and St. Cyprian.

We must, therefore, follow Paulinus into Kent,
not without casting a wistful and curious eye upon
the deserted See of York and the young Northum-
brian Church. History, however, is grudging of its

176 ST. PAULINUS,

materials. There is the good and holy James, the
deacon of Paulinus, who was seen helping his
bishop to baptize the multitudes in the Trent ; he
is still on the banks of the Swale by Catterick
Bridge, catechising and baptizing in spite of the
persecution, "an ecclesiastical man and a holy,
abiding long time in the Church of York, and
rescuing much prey from the old enemy." His is
the only figure visible on the scene ; and yet a very
interesting one, for the good deacon was a sweet
singer, too, and he was permitted to see peace
restored to his Church ; and then, a delightful task !
he taught the Yorkshire men to sing as they did at
Rome and Canterbury, till at last he was very old ;
and then he followed the way of his forefathers ;
and the labours and the sufferings and the good
deeds of James, the deacon of Paulinus, are hidden
with Christ in God.

Thus Paulinus, after his eight years in the north,
is now in Kent again ; and we may be sure he was
welcome to Honorius, whom he had consecrated
himself at Lincoln ; and we may be sure, too, that
he had done what was right and holy in leaving
York, for it chanced that when he came into Kent
the See of Rochester was vacant, Romanus, the
bishop, being drowned in the Mediterranean while
on an embassy to Rome. St. Honorius, therefore,
requested Paulinus, or rather, as Bede says, invited
him, and King Eadbald seconded the invitation, to
take charge of the widowed church of Rochester,
for there was no controversy yet between the
crosses of Canterbury and York. The ages of the
Church when crosses struggled for precedence were

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 177

yet to come, and, bad as they were, compared with
what had been, they were better a good deal than
ages when crosses were put by altogether, because
the world had settled all controversy between Can-
terbury and York by taking the precedence itself.

So Paulinus mounted the throne of Rochester ;
and as before he had laboured twenty-four years
in Kent in silence and obscurity, so far as history
can tell, he now labours in the same parts again
for eleven years, edifying and consolidating the
Kentish Church, we know not how, till in 644 he
passed to heaven, "with the fruit of his glorious
labour," and, like the prophet, bequeathed nothing
but his mantle, the first pall of York, which he
left to the Church of Rochester.

He does not seem to have been always resident
at Rochester ; perhaps he exercised episcopal
superintendence in other parts, as a kind of
spiritual vicar. For it appears that he lived for
a considerable time at Glastonbury, where he
caused the wattled walls of the old church to be
taken down, and built up from the ground of solid
timber, and covered with lead. Indeed, Paulinus
seems to have been a great church-builder, raising
and adorning the material fabric no less than build-
ing up the edifice of holy souls. This wooden
church of Glastonbury remained as Paulinus left
it, till it was burned down in the reign of Henry
the First.

He died on the loth of October, and was buried
in the sacristy of the blessed Apostle St. Andrew,
at Rochester. And we read (Capgrave ap. Cressy)
that, when Gundulph was Bishop of Rochester,

VOL. IV. M

178 ST. PAULINUS,

Lanfranc took down the old church, and taking
up the bones of St. Paulinus put them into a chest.
There was present at this ceremony a woman
grievously afflicted in body, and with her con-
science burdened with a certain sin. At the
sepulchre she vowed that, if by the merits of Pauli-
nus God would free her from her disease, she
would never again commit the sin of which she
had been guilty ; whereupon she was immediately
healed.

Do we seem to have but little to say of so famous
a Saint, and he, too, the first Archbishop of York,
and the apostle of Northumberland ? Do not let
us think this: think what our island was in the
first half of the seventh century : this good man
left the quietness and the glory, the examples and
the ceremonies of Rome, and laboured forty and
three years for us English : forty and three years, let
us count them out, and dwell on them in love,
for it was not little which he did, witness York and
Lincoln and Southwell ; and though the Trent
and the Swale and the Glen have flowed on and
changed their waters many times, yet the souls
regenerated in them are, in goodly sheaves we
trust, laid up in the garner of the Lord. There-
fore let us bless the memory of Paulinus, not only
for the eight years' labour which we know of, but
for the struggles and the toils of the silent thirty-
five. Thus is it ever with the saints : what we
know of them is but a sample of what they were ;
bunches of the grapes of Eshcol, brought out by
the Holy Church for the wonder and veneration
of her sons.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 179

It is singular that such labours as those of Pauli-
nus should have been so little illustrated by the
working of miracles ; and it is disappointing that
no traits should have been recorded of his personal
character which might have brought him nearer
to us, who cannot even see the cross which
Camden saw at Dewsbury on the Calder, with
the brief but sufficient inscription, Paulinus hie
prcedicavit et celebravit. When we look back, all
we see is what the old man saw \vho spoke with
Deda, Abbot of Peartney, a bishop, at noonday on
the banks of the Trent, very tall, with somewhat of
a stoop, black hair, an emaciated face, a very thin
and aquiline nose, with something both venerable
and awe-inspiring in his aspect ; and that was St.
Paulinus of York baptizing the Nottinghamshire
men.

THE LIFE OF

ST. EDWIN

KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND, A.D. 633

MOST beautiful is the diversity in the lives of
the saints. Some shine apart, like single stars dis-
cerned through the clouds of a troubled night,
while others gather in manifold constellations,
touching one upon another in a line of shapely
splendour across the sky, both equally, though in
different ways, illustrating our Lord's gracious pro-
mise that He would be with His Church to the end
of time. And, if in writing the lives of single saints
it is hard to keep the biography from running into
a general history of the age, so with a cluster of
saints, living with and acting upon each other, it is
hard to make the account of one complete without
forestalling and borrowing from another. Thus in
the life of St. Paulinus we have already virtually
included much of the life of Edwin, and in the life
of Edwin we must in like manner almost complete
the life of his holy consort St. Ethelburga.

There is, however, in Edwin a very strongly
marked personal character, much beyond what is
common in the lives of saints of whose inward

conflicts we know so little ; and this will give an

1 80

ST. EDWIN, 181

interest to the narrative of quite a different kind
from that which engages our attention to the life
of St. Paulinus. In the one case it is the build-
ing-up of an infant Church, the beginnings of
what was afterwards famous and magnificent ;
in the other it is the temper, the character,
the actions, the changeful fortunes of the Saint
himself.

Alia, the king of the Deiri, died in 589, leaving
an infant son, three years old. This infant was St.
Edwin, in whom was fulfilled the prophecy of St.
Gregory that alleluias should soon be sung in the
kingdom of Alia. Of course it was not likely in
those times that an infant should take quiet pos-
session of his hereditary throne, if indeed the Saxon
thrones of that day could be called hereditary at
all. Ethelfrid, the cruel king of the Bernicians,
usurped the throne of Alia, and constituted himself
the guardian of the young child. Without assum-
ing any unusually rigorous treatment on the part of
Ethelfrid, it is obvious that the position which
Edwin occupied in his court would be likely to try
and bring out the powers of his character, and,
being a school of suffering, to form him in virtue
and fit him for great things. The child grew up,
eminent for virtues and winning graces, and so
gained upon the affections of all that as he grew
to man's estate he became an object of fear and
jealousy to Ethelfrid. Meanwhile, he married
Quenburga, the daughter of Ceorl the Mercian
king. This possibly added to his influence, for
soon after Ethelfrid, upon some false charge or
other, banished Edwin from his court, notwith-

182 ST. EDWIN,

standing that Ethelfrid's own queen was Acca,
Edwin's sister, through which marriage the tyrant
had probably wished to give some appearance of
legitimate right to his usurpation.

Under whatever irksome restraints Edwin had lived
in the court, his life now became one of great suffer-
ing, want, and danger, which the company of Quen-
burga and his solicitude for her safety would greatly
enhance. He lived in constant dread of assassina-
tion, and kept moving from place to place, disguised
in a peasant's dress, until at length he threw himself
upon the generosity of Redwald, the king of the
East Angles, by whom he was hospitably and even
royally entertained ; and it was probably in the
court of Redwald that his sons Offrid and Edfrid
were born, and that their mother Quenburga died.
His conduct while at the East Anglian court was
such as to spread his fame all over the island, and
it is said that reading shared with martial exercises
all his leisure hours ; though kings' courts were not
the common homes for students in the seventh
century. Of course his growing renown would
make him still more an object of jealous hatred to
the usurper Ethelfrid, who employed spies and
assassins to take him off. By some means or other
Edwin baffled his persecutor, till Ethelfrid came to
the resolution of sending a messenger to Redwald
to buy his guest. Redwald rejecting the odious
offer, EtHelfrid menaced him \vith war, and ulti-
mately so won upon the fears of Redwald that he
consented to betray a single stranger rather than
bring his whole kingdom into trouble. By the
change in Redwald's demeanour Edwin perceived

KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND 183

that something was wrong, for persecution and
living in the midst of enemies had greatly quickened
his suspicions, and had bred in him a caution which
is afterwards very perceptible in the matter of his
conversion, yet wholly unaccompanied with cold-
ness, as caution mostly is in base natures. Mean-
while a friend of Edwin's discovered the secret
treaty made between Ethelfrid and Redwald ; and
coming into his chamber just as he was retiring to
bed, in the first hour of the night, he informed him
of his danger, saying, " If you wish, I will this very
hour take you out of the province, and lead you
into places where neither Ethelfrid nor Redwald
shall be able to find you." But amid persecution
Edwin had not learned distrust. He answered,
"Truly I am obliged to you for your good inten-
tions ; but I cannot do what you suggest, and be
the first to break the covenant which I have entered
into with so great a king, seeing he has done me no
ill yet, nor shown me any unfriendliness. Rather,
if I must die, let him, sooner than a more ignoble
person, deliver me to death. And, indeed, whither
shall I fly, when for so many years I have gone as
a vagabond through every province of Britain to
evade the snares of my enemies ? "

When his friend had left him, Edwin went forth
and sat down sorrowful before the palace, per-
plexed with opposite thoughts, and at a loss what
to do or which way to turn. He was probably by
this time a widower, and that bereavement may have
added to the natural pensiveness and hesitation
which belonged to his character, and so long de-
layed his acceptance of the Gospel. It is scarcely

184 ST. EDWIN,

possible we should not hear of his queen afterwards,
if she had not died before this ; and, indeed, in his
answer to his friend, mingling with a noble trust and
a resolution to abide honourably by his promise, we
may discover something of a broken spirit. Now,
putting aside the Gospel, it is plain that in the
world's acceptation of the term Edwin was no
common man. Cradled in adversity, tried by the
hourly irksomeness and petty rigours and disquiet-
ing restraints of Ethelfrid's court, proved yet more
fiercely by the hardships of wandering and poverty,
quietly dedicating his time to study, rather than
either seeking his throne through busy schemes
and plottings or burying his griefs in merriment
and dissipation when harboured in the Court of
Redwald, and, when the dark cloud came over
him, keeping his honour, giving way to sadness
rather than anger, a sadness, too, as his whole life
testifies, no way akin to cowardice, the Northum-
brian prince shone forth with virtues almost above
a heathen. There had been to him a sanctification
in suffering, even before he found the cross ; and
suffering, because it had not wrought in him selfish-
ness and meanness and a low cunning, had wrought
nobleness and tenderness and a trust in others.

The use he had made of God's dispensations, like
the alms and prayers of the unregenerate Cornelius,
earned him a further grace, though the great grace
was still deferred. While he sat, in anguish of mind
and with a half-unsettled purpose, before the palace
of Redwald in the dark night, God looked down upon
His creature whom He had ordained as a chosen
instrument through whom to give the cross to the

KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND 185

Englishmen of the north. Suddenly there was a
silence in the night, or something in the silence of an
unwonted sort, which riveted his attention, and
through the darkness he saw a person approach him,
whom he knew not, and whose appearance for some
reason or other, perhaps the instinctive knowledge
and feeling of an unearthly presence,alarmed him not
a little. The stranger drew near, and saluting him,
asked him wherefore he sat wakeful upon the stone
at an hour when others were in deep sleep. Edwin,
with the abruptness of a startled person, said it was
nothing to him whether he chose to pass the night
in the palace or out of doors. The stranger an-
swered : " Think not that I am ignorant of the
cause of thy sadness and watching, and thy sitting
here alone and out of doors. I know most surely
who thou art, and wherefore thou grievest, and
what ills thou fearest are nigh falling upon thee.
But tell me, what reward wouldst thou give the
man, if one there be, who shouldst free thee from
these anxieties, and persuade Redwald neither to
injure thee himself, nor deliver thee to thine
enemies to be slain." Edwin replied that he would
give all that he possessed to any one who should
confer such a benefit upon him ; whereupon the
stranger said, "And what if he promise thee of a
surety that thou shalt be a king, and overcome
thine enemies, so that thou shalt excel in power
not only all thine own ancestors, but even all those
who have ever been kings in England ?" Edwin,
recovering his self-possession during these in-
terrogations, promised without hesitation to reward
most worthily any one who should confer such

186 ST. EDWIN,

benefits upon him. Then the stranger for the
third time said; " If, however, he, who foretelleth
thee such and so great goods as really about to
come, can likewise counsel thee better and more
wisely about thy life and salvation than any of
thine ancestors or relations ever heard, wilt thou
consent to obey him, and to follow his salutary
admonitions ? " Again Edwin unhesitatingly pro-
mised that he would follow in all things the teach-
ing of the person who should from his present low
estate raise him to a throne. When the prince had
thus answered, the stranger laid his right hand on
his head, saying, "When this sign shall be given
unto thee, remember this hour and this discourse,
and delay not to fulfil what thou hast now promised."
Having uttered these words the stranger, whether
it were an Angel of the Most High, or the spirit of
a just man sent on that gracious embassy, dis-
appeared so immediately as to convince the prince
that he had held converse with some spiritual
being.

Meanwhile God was making use of human instru-
ments to bring about what his messenger had fore-
told. Redwald had communicated to his queen the
secret agreement which he had made with Ethelfrid;
but she, equally anxious for the honour of her royal
husband and the safety of her guest, persuaded the
king to abandon a design so unworthy of himself.
Edwin was still sitting pensive and doubting, before
the palace, when the same friend, who had warned
him at nightfall, found him and gave him the wel-
come information of the change wrought in Red-
wald's purpose through the intercession of the

KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND 187

queen. Ethelfrid, enraged at the failure of his
design, fulfilled his threat and made war on Red-
wald, who indeed had sent a personal defiance to
Ethelfrid as soon as he had abandoned his first
dishonourable intention : so short is the passage
between a sinful purpose half formed, and what a
man fancies is righteous indignation against his
tempter ! In this contest Edwin was no mean ally,
for his prowess in riding and throwing the lance is
specially mentioned among the causes of Ethelfrid's
first jealousy against him. Redwald, scarcely giving
the usurper time to muster his forces, gave him
battle on the banks of the Idle in Nottinghamshire.
Ethelfrid behaved with singular bravery, and with
his own hand slew Rainer, the son of Redwald ; this
loss so exasperated the king of the East Anglians
that, redoubling his efforts, he became master of the
field. Ethelfrid was slain on the spot, and Edwin
recovered his throne ; while by the death of Rainer
he likewise became heir to Redwald. Oswald and
Ebba, the children of Ethelfrid, fled from the
country, fearing the anger of their uncle Edwin,
whose sister Acca was their mother. This battle is
usually placed in the year 617, when Edwin was
about thirty-one years old.

Edwin was not a likely person to forget the super-
natural vision and the covenanted sign ; much was
fulfilled already, but there was more to come, and
with his pensive disposition he doubtless pondered
it often in his heart. Meanwhile his career of con-
quest began, and his fame was spread all round.
In 620 he recovered the south-western parts of
Yorkshire and the country about Leeds from

i88 ST. EDWIN,

Cadwan, the king of the Britons, who had taken it,
together with most of the modern diocese of Ripon,
from Ethelfrid. In 621 he took advantage of a
quarrel between Ferquhard, the Pictish king, and
his nobles, and gained a considerable accession of
territory. In the next year he made himself master
of the islands of Anglesey and Man. In 624
Redwald died, and the people, passing over his son
Erpenwald, offered their crown to Edwin. Edwin
seems to have behaved towards Erpenwald with a
generosity not common in those times, but worthy
of his own noble character. He made himself lord
paramount of the East Anglian kingdom, but left to
Erpenwald the insignia of royal power. And now
he assumed the title of Sovereign of the English
nation, which Ethelbert had borne before. Thus
rapidly and cotnpletely were the words of the
heavenly messenger accomplished. The exile at
the palace door at dead of night in seven short
years is, and not by empty title only, Sovereign
of the English nation : " For promotion cometh
neither from the east nor from the west, nor yet
from the south. And why ? God is the Judge ;
He putteth down one, and setteth up another ; "
and Edwin was a chosen vessel in His hands for
the welfare of our dear country.

Edwin was now resting from his conquests ; and
it seemed natural for a powerful monarch to wish
to consolidate his kingdom, and to ally himself with
another regal house. The resolution was natural,
yet God was working in it ; and through it the
Divine purpose was secretly advancing towards its
gracious end. In 625 it was that Edwin sent his

KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND 189

ambassadors into Kent to demand of Eadbald his
sister Ethelburga in marriage. The first repulse
which Edwin met with neither angered nor dis-
couraged him. He was not one to esteem a bride
the less highly because she preferred the dictates of
conscience to a splendid alliance, or the honour of
her God to her own aggrandisement. As we have
seen in the life of St. Paulinus, consent was ulti-
mately given, and St. Paulinus himself came with
the royal virgin to preserve and build up the queen
and her Christian attendants in their most holy
faith. This marriage took place in the eighth year
of the reign of Pope Boniface the fifth, and in that
same year he wrote both to Edwin and St. Ethel-
burga. In his letter to the king he dwells upon the
incomprehensibility of the Godhead, and holds up
for Edwin's imitation the conversion of Eadbald his
brother-in-law. He exhorts him to rid himself of
idle and hurtful superstitions, but to take upon him-
self the sign of the cross, and not to refuse to listen
to the preachers of the Gospel ; and finally he
presents him with a shirt with a single gold orna-
ment upon it, and a garment of Ancyra, together
with the blessing of the prince of the Apostles.
This letter can hardly have failed to make a deep
impression upon a mind so serious as Edwin's.
The selfish, unzealous indifference of polytheism is
notorious : the love of souls is a grace exclusively
belonging to the Church of Christ. What then
must Edwin have thought of the vast power of faith
and the intense charity which such a phenomenon
as the Papacy presented to the eye of a heathen ?
Rome had no interest in the matter. Here was no

190 ST. EDWIN,

priesthood to aggrandise, as men coarsely and
stupidly speak ; here were no revenues to be re-
ceived, no secular claims to establish, no ambition
to satisfy. On the very face of it Christianity came
to the heathen as something so different from the
manifold forms of false religion round them, as to
arrest attention and engage inquiry ; and it was the
mysterious interest which the Roman bishop took
in their conversion which was the most outward
and striking characteristic of the new religion. It
perplexed them ; and their perplexity led them on ;
and this would not be lost upon one like Edwin.

Still he delayed. There was none of that greedy
credulity, of that facile acquiescence, of mental
weakness overawed by the tremendous doctrines of
the Gospel, of an unreasoning appetite for prodi-
gies, which people nowadays believe made up the
characters of the old saints. On the contrary there
is something quite striking, indeed one might almost
say unaccountable, in the long hesitation of Edwin,
and in the intellectual way (to use a modern word)
in which he set about his inquiry. There is
nothing on the face of the history which adequately
explains it ; for his whole life goes against the sup-
position of anything like a cold temperament or a
distrusting heart. Rather one may conjecture the
cause to have been this : that he was a very pious
heathen, a religious man as far as he knew and
believed, one who had sought consolation in re-
ligious observances during his long troubles, and
whose thoughts from the pressure of circumstances
had been a good deal turned towards the invisible
world. This would agree with all we know of him,

KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND 191

and explain what is the most difficult point in his
character. For to a man who first reads the history
of Edwin's conversion there will mostly come a
feeling of disappointment at the protracted hesita-
tion and apparent indifference which he exhibited.
But if our conjecture be true that he had been what
men call a bigoted, that is, a sincere religionist in
his dark way, even the wretched observances of his
false faith would, and rightly, have no small value in
his sight ; and, as he did not hold them cheap, he
would not lightly abandon them. Supposing this
to be the case, it is obvious that the daily quiet
example of his Christian consort, and the eminent
virtues of St. Paulinus, would help on his conver-
sion more than miracles or startling Providences.
He was not ready for them yet : doubtless the
preparation of his heart had been long going on
before St. Paulinus gave him the sign of the heavenly
vision.

The growth of Edwin's power had not been
observed by his neighbours without envy and dis-
quietude, which led in 626 to an atrocious attempt
on his life, on the part of Quichelm, the king of the
West Saxons. He sent to Edwin a messenger of
the name of Eumer, who found the king at Aldby
on the Derwent, not far from York. While he pre-
tended to be doing homage, the assassin suddenly
drew a poisoned dagger from under his garment,
and fell upon the king. Lilla, Edwin's favourite
minister, threw himself between his master and
Eumer, and the weapon passed through his body,
making even a slight wound in Edwin's flesh ; and
it was not until he had slain Forthhere, one of the

192 ST. EDWIN,

king's soldiers, that the murderer was slain himself.
This narrow escape was on Easter Sunday. It
happened that St. Ethelburga was at that time
pregnant and near to her delivery, and the shock
bringing on the pains of travail l she was that night
delivered of a daughter named Eanflede. Edwin,
in the presence of St. Paulinus, returned thanks to
his false gods for the queen's safe delivery ; but the
Saint boldly affirmed the blessing to have been an
answer to some special prayers of his. The Bishop's
life had been such as to clear him from any sus-
picion of craft or untruth, and his words made a
deep impression on the king. It is said that Edwin
took pleasure in his words, and promised that he
would renounce his idols and serve Christ, if, as a
sign, victory was accorded to him over the base
Quichelm, and, as a present earnest, he delivered
the infant princess to St. Paulinus to be consecrated
to Christ. She, with twelve others of her family, was
baptized on the following Whitsunday, to the joy of
Paulinus and the great consolation of St. Ethelburga.
At Whitsuntide the king, being recovered of his
wound, notwithstanding the poison in which the
blade had been dipped, marched against the West
Saxons, and by God's help utterly subdued his
enemies. Yet not even then did he perform the
promise which he had given to St. Paulinus.2 A

1 Such is the way in which Bede's narrative is usually taken ; both
Alford and Cressy take it so, but Alban Butler makes the birth of the
daughter to have been on Easter Eve, which suits Bede's word pepererat
much better, and what he says afterwards of the easy delivery.

2 The quo tempore of Bede would seem to imply that the letters of
Pope Boniface came during Edwin's suspense after his victory over
Quichelm : but the victory was in 626, and that was the first year of
the pontificate of Honorius.

KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND 193

change of religion seemed a grave matter even to a
conscientious heathen. He did not forget or neglect
his promise, but he made Paulinus instruct him in
the Christian faith on the one hand, while on the
other he conferred with the wisest persons of his
court on this momentous subject. The natural
pensiveness of his disposition showed itself very
strongly ; for not content to be instructed and to
hold conferences, he withdrew a great deal from
public, and sat by himself for long together in
silent conflict. Perhaps what he had seen in the
court of Redwald was a stumbling-block in his way,
and had done an injury to the cause of Christ in
Edwin's mind. For Redwald had himself received
the sacrament of regeneration in Kent, but on his
return to his own country was seduced from the
faith, and in the darkness of his mind professed
both the Gospel and idolatry at once, having a
temple wherein was one altar to Christ, and a
"small" one, a characteristic difference, whereon
to sacrifice to devils. This would of course bring
about a very wretched state of things among the
East Saxons, and would be not unlikely to take
from the majestic and imposing appearance of the
Gospel in Edwin's mind, even when it was after-
wards brought before him as it really is in itself.
The heavenly vision, also, would doubtless be con-
tinually in his mind during these silent retirements
and lonely meditations. The oracle had been amply
fulfilled in all that was promised to temporal dignity
and extended sway ; what was there in the circum-
stances about him which might be a fulfilling of the
part which spoke of salvation ? What had come
VOL. iv, N

194 ST. EDWIN,

nigh him or gathered round him, apart from his
increased dominions and magnificence ? A Christian
queen, a handful of Kentish believers, an Italian
bishop — what were these to the Northumbrian king ?
What place had they in the designs of Heaven ?
Were they connected with the vision ? Truly
Edwin had need to sit alone and be silent : he was
in the hand of God ; the shadow of the cross fell
upon his very hearth, and he was beginning to per-
ceive it.

But now the hour of grace was come. Whether
it were that some prayer of perplexity was that
moment offered up, we know not ; but while he sat
alone, and pondered the new religion, the vision
came and found him out. St. Paulinus entered,
laid his right hand on his head, and guided by
divine inspiration, asked him if he knew that sign.
Edwin recognised the token ; he trembled like an
aspen leaf, and would have fallen down at the
bishop's feet. But the holy man raised him up,
and with an encouraging manner addressed him
thus : " See, you have by God's assistance escaped
the enemies whom you feared; behold, you have
through His bounty received the kingdom which
you desired. Take heed that you delay not that
third thing which you promised, namely, to em-
brace the faith and keep the commandments of
Him who hath out of temporal distresses raised you
to a temporal kingdom, and who will also free you
from the perpetual torments of evil and make you
partaker with Himself of His heavenly kingdom,
provided only you henceforth conform yourself to
His will, which I preach to you." Edwin replied

KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND 195

that he was ready at once to submit to the faith of
Christ, which the bishop taught.

But it seemed a small thing to him, after all his
delay and these convincing proofs, to come empty-
handed, so to speak, to the holy sacrament. He
would fain his friends and counsellors should share
with him the grace of God and the benefits of the
blessed laver. He proposed, therefore, to hold a
conference with his nobles, and endeavour to per-
suade them to come with him to be cleansed in
Christ, the fount of life. This famous conference
took place at Godmundingham,'not far from York.
The nobles doubtless had many times been present
at the preaching of St. Paulinus, for Edwin assumed
that they knew something of the new religion pro-
posed to them. He began by asking them all round
what each one thought of the unheard-of doctrine
and new worship of the Divinity which was pro-
posed. The chief priest, Coifi, was the first who
answered, " See, O king, what manner of thing this
is which is now preached to us ; for I candidly pro-
fess that for what I see the religion we have held
hitherto has neither power nor profit in it. None
of your subjects has more studiously attended to
the worship of the gods than myself, and yet there
are many who receive greater gifts and higher
dignities from you than I do, and succeed better in
all matters where anything is to be achieved or
gained. Now if the gods were worth anything, of
course, they would rather help me, who have served
them so carefully. Wherefore, if we find on ex-
amination the new things, which are preached to
us, worthier and stronger, let us make as much

196 ST. EDWIN,

haste as ever we can to receive them." It was an
odd test which poor Coifi hit upon to try a religion,
and his disappointed ambition comes to the surface
with a very natural, if not dignified, candour. Yet
after all, though it has seldom been related without
a passing sneer, is the unhelpfulness of the idols
set forth in so very different a way from what it is
on more than one occasion in the Old Testament ?

Another of the king's chief counsellors, assenting
to the words of Coifi, said, " O king, the present life
of man on earth seems to me, in comparison of the
unknown time, as though when you are sitting at
supper with your generals and counsellors in the
winter time, when the fire is kindled in the midst
and the room made warm, while out-of-doors the
wintry rain and snow are whirling about, and a
sparrow comes and flies quickly through the hall,
coming in at one door and escaping by another.
For the moment during which it is within, it is not
touched by the winter storm, but the little space of
quiet being run out in a moment, it glides back
into the winter whence it came. So seems man's
life for a while, but what shall follow or what went
before, we know nothing of. Wherefore if this new
doctrine inform us any the more certainly about it,
it seems worthy of being followed."

The council seems to have been quite unanimous :
what Coifi had said would doubtless come home to
some ; while the touching confession of ignorance,
so beautifully made by the nameless speaker, would
find the better natures, and be as it were a voice to
what they had all along been feeling. Coifi, how-
ever, as was natural in a priest, wished to hear St.

KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND 197

Paulinus more at length, on the subject of the new
faith. The holy bishop, at the king's command,
having addressed the council, Coifi exclaimed, " I
have long perceived that there was nothing in what
we have been worshipping, because the more dili-
gently I sought for truth in that worship, the less
I found it. But now I openly declare that in this
preaching shines forth that truth which is able to
give us life, salvation, and eternal blessedness.
Wherefore I propose, O king, that we immediately
curse and burn the temples and altars which we
have fruitlessly consecrated."

Thus ended the famous debate of Godmunding-
ham ; and before the council broke up, Edwin gave
St. Paulinus liberty to preach the Gospel, and
openly renouncing idolatry, he proclaimed his own
submission to the faith of Christ. Then arose the
question, who was to desecrate the enclosures of
the idol temples ? the ardent Coifi offered himself
for that service, " for," said he, " who is fitter than
myself to give that example to all, and to destroy,
through the wisdom that God hath given me, those
things which I worshipped in my folly ? " So say-
ing, he requested of the king arms and a stallion,
thereby to show more signally his contempt for his
former superstitions, which forbade a priest to carry
arms, and allowed him to ride on a mare only.
Then he went forth with his lance in rest, and rode
to the idol temple. The people, seeing his strange
unpriestly guise, believed he was gone mad ; but
when he approached the temple he threw his spear
into it, and, "much rejoicing in the acknowledg-
ment of the true God," he gave orders to his com-

198 ST. EDWIN,

panions to burn the temple with all its enclosures.
And thus fell the false gods of the Yorkshiremen, to
rise again, yet only for a little while.

The facility with which in this and some other
cases a large body of people renounced their
ancient religion has sometimes provoked a sneer.
Yet surely most unreasonably. To deem the per-
sons so converted insincere or indifferent is to
underrate the divine character of the Gospel, and
to disbelieve the promise which Christ made of
being ever with His Church : that a sudden inspira-
tion should light upon a multitude of men is, of
course, in one sense miraculous ; but does not the
Gospel lead us to look for miracles in the conver-
sion of the heathen ? and, when we call such a
thing miraculous, do we mean anything further
than that it is a more palpable display of God's
power than the equally supernatural work of con-
vincing the intellect and preparing the heart of an
individual ? It does not follow that Edwin's con-
version was the only sincere one, because in his
case only we know something of the protracted
processes through which he was brought to the
knowledge of the truth and the acceptance of it.
The nameless speaker at the conference would
probably imbibe the faith more readily than Edwin,
from his imaginative turn of mind and the melan-
choly tenderness so visible in his speech. Neither
must we forget, what history, of course, can take no
cognisance of, the daily operation of the preaching
of Paulinus, the example of Ethelburga, the con-
verse of her Christian attendants, the sight of
Christian ceremonial, the presence of Christian

KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND 199

emblems. The fact that, as Bede says, the nobles
universally submitted to the faith, and also a great
many of the people, may perhaps intimate that the
movement began — just where all these things were
more specially present — in the court, and how
long it may have been going on even before the
conference of Godmundingham, of course we can-
not tell.

Notwithstanding Edwin's many conferences with
St. Paulinus, he required a yet more perfect in-
struction in the mysteries of the faith, before he
was fit to receive the sacrament of regeneration.
During this interval he had a wooden church, or
oratory, erected at York, which was to be the chief
city of the bishopric. It was on Easter Sunday,
which in 627 fell on the I2th of April, that Edwin
was baptized in the wooden church dedicated to St.
Peter ; and either then, or shortly afterwards, his
sons Offrid and Eadfrid, which Quenburga bore
him in his banishment, were also received into the
Christian Church, and Iffi, the son of Offrid. His
sons Ethelhun and Wuscfrea, and his daughter
Etheldrith, the children of St. Ethelburga, were all
afterwards baptized ; but Ethelhun and Etheldrith,
says Bede, were taken out of this life in their
baptismal white, and buried in the church at York.
A large and noble church of stone now began to
rise over the wooden oratory ; six years was Edwin
building it, yet when he died the wall had not
reached its proper height, and the completion of it
was reserved for his great successor, St. Oswald.
The success which the Gospel had in Northumber-
land, the labours of St. Paulinus in Yorkshire, the

200 ST. EDWIN,

conversion of Lincolnshire, and the building of
Southwell in Nottinghamshire, are the chief events
of the next six years, and belong rather to the life
of the bishop than of the king. Edwin seems to
have had a taste for magnificence ; for not only in
war, but also in peace, his banners were borne
before him, and even when he walked the streets
the ensign, called by the Romans Tufa, was borne
before him. There was probably as much wise
policy as personal love of dignity, in general so dis-
tasteful to the saints, in this practice. Indeed, he
seems to have been a most able king, and the
account of the state of his dominions is very unlike
our usual notion of the northern counties of
England in the seventh century. It was said,
proverbially, that a woman with her new-born
child might traverse the island from sea to sea,
and no one hurt her. Whenever he perceived a
clear spring near the highway, such was his pater-
nal solicitude for the good of his people that he
had stakes driven into the ground, and brazen
saucers hung upon them, that they who travelled
by might slake their thirst — a beautiful instance
of his characteristic thoughtfulness ! And such
was the mingled dread and affection which he
inspired that no one dared to injure or remove
the vessels.

In 632 the holy father Honor ius, who at that
time ruled the Apostolic See, sent a letter of exhor-
tation to Edwin, in which he greatly praises his
orthodoxy and the inflamed fire of his faith, and
warns him to persevere to the end in order that he
may reach the blessed mansions of the world to

KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND 201

come, and then says, " Be ofttimes occupied in the
reading of your preacher, my lord Gregory, of
apostolical memory, and keep before your eyes the
zealousness of his doctrine, which he willingly em-
ployed for your souls, so that his prayers may
augment your realm and people, and present you
unblamable before Almighty God." The Pope at
the same time sent palls to Honorius of Canterbury,
and Paulinus.

The life and reign of Edwin now drew to a close.
In 633 a rebellion broke out against him, the chiefs
of which were Cadwalla, the British king, and
Penda, one of the Mercian blood royal. A battle
took place at Heathfield, on the Don, on the i2th
of October. The contest was severe : Offrid, the
gallant son of Edwin, making a fierce charge upon
the enemy, was killed ; and the king himself was
shortly afterwards slain by the hand of the heathen
Penda, whence he has been honoured with the title
of Martyr. He died in the 47th year of his age, and
the i yth year of his reign. After the admonition of
Pope Honorius it is interesting to read that the
head of Edwin was brought to York, and was
buried in the porch of the new church, named, in
affectionate honour of the great pontiff, the porch
of St. Gregory.

The life of St. Edwin does not seem like a story
of the seventh century. But if it is devoid of the
interest borrowed from the signs and wonders
which in so many cases it pleased the Head of the
Church to work by the hands of His saints, it has
a special edification of its own for our times. To
our narrow view it appears as though the age of

202 ST. EDWIN,

miracle and prodigy and strange interventions and
unearthly judgments was of necessity destitute of
scrutiny, firmness, delay, intellectual hesitation, and
the conscientious exercise of humble judgment.
Now it is only necessary to put St. Edwin's life by
the side of St. Oswald's to see how false this is.
Both were eminent saints ; the lives of both are for
the most part drawn from the same sources ; yet
one seems to move along a track of miracles, the
other to exhibit the gradual submission of a power-
ful intellect to the faith of Christ. In a word, there
is, in appearance, something modern about St.
Edwin's life, such as may, to a certain class of
minds, suggest thoughts which it were well they
should improve upon.

THE LIFE OF

ST. ETHELBURGA

QUEEN, A.D. 633

WITH what tenderness does Holy Church console
the faithful by retrieving the good from out the dis-
heartening multitude of evil, and in holyday and
liturgy exposing it, as though it were some precious
relic, to the veneration of Catholics in the lives of
the saints ! We learn to reverence the memory of
the holy bishop who founded the Northumbrian
church ; we follow him amid his labours, from the
Swale to the Glen, from York to Lincoln, from
Lincoln to Nottingham. He did his part of the
work. But neither do we forget the great and
strong-minded Edwin ; he was a king ; he had his
work to do, and he did it in a kingly way. One
would think the mitred clerk and the crowned lay-
man were enough to keep alive in our minds the
great mercy of God in planting the cross in the
north of England. But no ! the eye of the Church
finds out the gentle queen, the saintly Ethelburga,
passing her silent years in the court of a heathen
husband. Had not she, too, her work to do ? And
did she not do it ? And had she not a very noble

heart ? So she, too, is given us to venerate.

203

204 ST. ETHELBURGA, QUEEN

Though we know but little of her, that little is
enough to give us wholesome thoughts ; and
though her meek life is told in her husband's life,
yet there is enough about her to let her shine like a
star apart, a star not to be overlooked, because an
essential feature in the holy group of Edwin and
Paulinus, Oswald, Aidan, and Oswin, and the rest
who in that century worked the work of God in the
dark North.

The Church, who every vespers recites the Magni-
ficat of our blessed Lady, could not overlook the
holy women, the ascetic virgins, the pure wives, the
saintly mothers, who, like Mary, have in one sense
conceived the Lord, and brought Him forth anew
to His Church in every age. The Gospel came into
Kent through a woman ; it came into Yorkshire
through a woman too ; and as by a blessed woman
the world received the Saviour, so has it been said
that nothing great has been done in the Church
but what a woman has had part therein. "For
first many of them descended into the amphitheatres
with the martyrs; others disputed with the anchorets
the possession of the desert. Presently Constantine
unfolded the Labarum on the Capitol, while St.
Helena raised the cross on the walls of Jerusalem.
Clovis at Tolbiac invoked the god of Clotilda ; the
tears of Monica redeemed the errors of Augustine.
Jerome dedicated the Vulgate to the piety of two
Roman ladies, Paula and Eustochium. St. Basil
and St. Benedict, the first legislators of the monastic
life, were succoured by Macrina and Scholastica,
their sisters. Later on, the Countess Matilda sus-
tained with her chaste hands the tottering throne

ST. ETHELBURGA, QUEEN 205

of Gregory the seventh. The wisdom of Queen
Blanche administered the realm of St. Louis ; Joan
of Arc saved France ; Isabella of Castille presided
over the discovery of the New World. To come
nearer still to our own times, one sees St. Theresa
mingling with a group of bishops, doctors, and
founders of Orders to work a thorough reforma-
tion of Catholic society. St. Francis of Sales culti-
vated the soul of Madame de Chantal as a chosen
flower, and St. Vincent of Paul confided to Louisa
de Marillac that most admirable of his designs, the
establishment of the Sisters of Charity."1 And
amid this galaxy we may dare to place our English
Ethelburga.

St. Ethelburga was the daughter of King Ethel-
bert, of blessed memory, and of his queen Bertha.
Her life was, as it were, her mother's life over again.
Bertha, with her Bishop Luidhard, consented to
yoke herself with a heathen husband for the Lord's
sake and the amplifying of His Church ; her daughter
Ethelburga, with the Bishop Paulinus, did for York
what her mother had done for Canterbury. What
a sweet picture it is, a Christian virgin led like a
lamb to a lot from which her own heart shrunk,
but with a shepherd by her side, a Christian bishop,
to keep her from the wolves ! What a contrast to
the rudeness and the wassail and the strife of a
heathen court ! Fair as the moon, yet for the
inward might of truth terrible as an army with
banners, and each of the two finally enslaving the
kingdoms whither they were led ! We know nothing

1 Ozanam. Philos. Cath. du xiii. siecle, ap. Ratisbonne. Vie de S,
Bernard, i. xxxv.

206 ST. ETHELBURGA, QUEEN

of the early years of Ethelburga. There can be
little doubt but that she was most tenderly guarded
by her mother, and most carefully instructed by St.
Luidhard. The obstinate refusal of her brother
Eadbald to submit to the faith would render her
still more precious in the eyes of Bertha, and she
doubtless grew up in secret holiness. How she
passed the interval between Eadbald's accession
and his conversion we do not know ; but here also
there can be but little doubt that the eye of St.
Laurence would watch over the princess with the
vigilance of a father and the affection of a mother,
while the idolatry and incest of her brother daily
vexed her righteous soul. Her girlhood, therefore,
was hardly spent in peace. She witnessed scenes
which must have aided materially in forming her
character and establishing her faith ; and we are
not taken by surprise either at the first indignant
impulse with which she rejected the hand of Edwin,
nor at her unhesitating compliance when it came
before her in the light of a sacrifice for the love of
God. A fearful sacrifice indeed, for what honour,
peace, comfort, could there be for the Kentish virgin
in the court of the heathen North ! What consola
tion in the prospect of a mother's office, or wha
certainty of ultimately doing good, when her husban<
was such an one as the strong warrior, the proud
conqueror, the pomp-loving king !

But she made the sacrifice ; she went forth
Paulinus was her Luidhard ; and York became a
Canterbury, a conquest of the faith. Yet think o
her position as a queen before her husband's con
version ; what numberless positions of a distressing

ST. ETHELBURGA, QUEEN 207

kind would she be placed in almost daily, from the
mere force of circumstances ! What temptations
to act one way for peace sake, when truth led her
the other ! What perplexing questions of com-
pliance or non-compliance ! What a puzzle to
draw the line between singularity and concession !
And a woman to be placed in such a position ! Yet
by her unaffectedness and boldness, by the armour
of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,
God's Providence overshadowing her in the person
and presence of St. Paulinus, she came forth trium-
phant. Her life is rather to be imagined than told;
her feelings at the attempted assassination of St.
Edwin, at the baptism of Eanflede, at the conver-
sion of the king, may readily be conceived. And
then those six years of royal progresses, of river-
sides thronged with candidates for baptism, of good
Paulinus preaching and converting up and down,
of the fair minster of York rising higher and higher,
a Christian queen the ornament of a Christian court,
a Christian mother with her children Christians
also, what happiness was hers ; happiness earned
by humble efforts, and enjoyed with like humility !
Three canonised saints meeting in almost daily con-
verse, a king, a bishop, and a queen ; unconscious
as the saints ever are of their own high endow-
ments, and who would have been stricken to the
ground at the thought of being hereafter venerated
by the Catholics of all times and lands — what a
picture it is, a page of the seventh century !

Those six years were not a dream. Yet they
were but a transient reality. They came in the
middle of her life like a bright noon between two

208 ST. ETHELBURGA, QUEEN

storms ; yet doubtless they developed many graces
which had been sown during adverse times and
difficult trials. However, sunshine seldom lasts
long with saints ; the Gospel is a religion of suffer-
ing, for this plain reason, that to suffer is to be
Christlike. Edwin was slain ; the wild beasts were
loose in the Northumbrian church ; and her shep-
herd Paulinus withdrew her from their fangs. His-
tory has preserved the name of Edwin's favourite
captain, the loyal Bassus, beneath whose escort the
bishop and the queen took ship, and coasted Eng-
land till they came to Kent. Her welcome from
Eadbald would doubtless be all which a sister would
require. But Ethelburga had done with courts;
she had entered one only for the love of God and
in conformity to His will ; and when she now
dedicated herself to the monastic state, was she not
probably doing nothing more than reverting to the
wishes of her younger days, fulfilling in Kent in her
widowhood what she had perhaps thought of in
Kent in her virginity ? Her children disposed of,
she built a monastery at Liming with Eadbald's
consent and assistance, and gave herself up to holy
poverty. She is said to have been the first Saxon
widow who took the veil, and in the Martyrology
is called the Mother of many virgins and widows.
She put on her earthly crown for the love of Christ,
she wore it for His Church, she put it off for the
greater love she bore Him, and she now reigns
with Him in heaven. May her merits and inter-
cession avail with Him for those fair districts of the
North among which she went as an obedient Angel
to plant the blessed Rood !

THE LIFE OF
ST. OSWALD

KING AND MARTYR, A.D. 642

ST. EDWIN and St. Oswald were uncle and nephew
by blood ; they were in their political relations what
the world calls enemies ; and they were both saints
in the Catholic Church. For the Church knows
nothing of time or place or temporary relations,
but gathers up all that was holy and self-deny-
ing and Christlike in the past, and solemnly en-
shrines it for the comfort and support of her
children in all ages. We may now pursue the
history of the Northumbrian Church in the life of
St. Oswald.

It will be remembered that when King Ethelfrid
was slain, and St. Edwin gained possession of his
throne in 617, Ethelfrid's three sons, Eanfrid,
Oswald, and Oswy, fled into Scotland, which was
to be to them what the court of their father had
been to St. Edwin, a school of adversity, training
them to fill high places. In Scotland they learned
the Christian faith, and received the sacrament of
regeneration. From Oswald's subsequent inter-
course with the Scotch we may gather that the
youthful princes found a kind and hospitable refuge
VOL. iv. 209 O

210 ST. OSWALD,

there, and that the time of their banishment was
not on the whole a period of suffering and hard-
ship. St. Bede speaks as though Oswald had been
personally popular with his hosts. On the death
of St. Edwin the three princes naturally returned
home, as Edwin's queen and youthful children had
retired into the south. Osric, the cousin of St.
Edwin, and a convert of St. Paulinus, succeeded to
the kingdom of the Deiri, and Eanf rid, the eldest son
of Ethelfrid, to the throne of Bernicia. Both kings,
deprived of the safeguard of adversity, fell away
from the faith, and returned to the licentious abom-
inations of idolatry. Meanwhile the Northum-
brian Church and kingdom were being laid waste
by the fierce and brutal Cadwalla, who slew Osric
the summer after his accession, being made the
instrument of Heaven to punish that unhappy
king's apostasy. Soon after, Eanfrid, going to
Cadwalla with only twelve soldiers in order to sue
for peace, was also cruelly put to death ; and
Oswald became the rightful monarch of the North-
umbrians.

Nothing could appear to human eyes less hope-
ful than the infant Church of Paulinus after the
death of St. Edwin : the holy archbishop himself
gone on other duties : the kingdom divided, and
that between two apostates : and the country occu-
pied by the ruthless invader Cadwalla. The light of
the Gospel seemed well-nigh extinct. Such a ter-
rible impression did that year leave upon people's
minds that it was called the accursed year; and
historians, with a common consent as touching as
it is significant, shrank from reckoning it as the

KING AND MARTYR 211

reign of Osric and Eanfrid, but added it as a ninth
year to the eight of St. Oswald. But it is mostly
when a branch of His Church is shorn of human
powers, like Gideon's army, that God is pleased
to intervene, in order that men may acknow-
ledge, what they are ever forgetting, that the
Church is a divine institution and that all our
strength and all our gifts are from above. He
had taken St. Edwin to Himself : St. Paulinus was
removed, absent in body though doubtless power-
fully present in spirit, and the intercessions of the
dead and the living were heard in behalf of the
Church those two saints had planted. St. Oswald
was raised to carry on the work which St. Edwin
had begun, and to carry it on in a manner so
different as to lead us to muse on the Divine
government of the Church. Considering that it
was the foundation of a new Church among a
people of strong feelings, fierce prejudices and
rugged ways, it is, to say the least, very striking
that there should have been such a comparatively
small display of miraculous powers. The calm,
dubious, searching, contemplative, intellectual spirit
which reigns through the lives of Saints Edwin
and Paulinus, and comes uppermost in the famous
conference held by the king, is certainly not what
we usually find to prevail during the beginnings of
the faith amid a barbarous nation. It gives a very
special and marked character to the rise of the
Northumbrian Church. But when we pass from
the days of Edwin to those of Oswald, we enter
quite a different atmosphere. The Church lived
on through the lonely ministrations of James the

212 ST. OSWALD,

deacon, whose spirit was possibly cheered by some
such supernatural assurance as Elijah received of
the many among the people who had not bowed
the knee to Baal. And with the accession of
Oswald the mighty Hand and stretched-out Arm
come forth visibly in behalf of the Church. Miracles
and visions abound. The personal character of the
king seems almost lost in the display of super-
natural interference. The wide possessions and
extended power of St. Edwin, won by active saga-
city and assiduous enterprise, are regained by the
austere, ascetic Oswald.

Seventeen years Prince Oswald spent in banish-
ment among the Scots ; and it was probably in
635 that his brother Eanfrid was murdered. The
apostasy and punishment of Osric and Eanfrid
would of course make a deep impression on the
pious mind of Oswald ; and the quiet confidence
of faith with which he appears to have acted might
lead one to suppose that he looked upon the recent
disasters as rising rather from his brother's sin than
from Cadwalla's power, and that he feared God's
anger more than the invader's overwhelming force.
Immediately on Eanfrid's death he collected what
few forces he could, and encamped against Cad-
walla near the brook called Denisburn, at no great
distance from the Roman wall. His " little flock of
kids," like Israel before the army of Benhadad, were
in no wise dismayed : their leader, says William of
Malmesbury, was armed with faith rather than
weapons : justice and the blessing of God were his
allies. He had learned his faith amid the zealous
and devout Scots, and the celestial guardians of

KING AND MARTYR 213

that people were now permitted to succour and
console him. The evening before the battle, and
close to Cadwalla's camp, Oswald caused a rude
cross of wood to be reared, and with his own
hands held it up while the cavity was filled in with
earth. No sooner did it stand erect than the king
cried out to the army with a loud voice, " Let us
all bend our knees, and pray unto the Lord,
omnipotent, living and true, to defend us by His
pitifulness from our proud and fierce enemy ; for
He Himself knoweth that our war is a just war
for the safety of pur nation." When the king's
devotions were finished he retired to his tent ; and
during the night slept peacefully, as being in the
hands of God and beneath the custody of good
angels. 'As he slept St. Columba appeared to
him, and assured him, not only of victory on the
morrow, but also of a happy reign. The vision
Oswald himself related to Failbey, Abbot of lona,
who told it to St. Adamnan, his successor ; and it
is by him inserted in his life of St. Columba.1 At
break of day the battle took place, when Oswald
obtained a complete victory, and the Cumbrian
tyrant was left dead on the field. The name of
the place where the battle was fought was Heven-
feld, or Heaven's Field, a name which, as St. Bede
says, was a sort of prophecy that in times to come
the sign of our redemption should be set up there.
The exact site is not known, but it appears to have
been only a few miles from Hexham.
This, like St. Edwin's battle on the river Idle, was

1 Chaloner, ii. 67. Brit. Sanct.

214 ST. OSWALD,

a new beginning for the Northumbrian Church ;
only that, as Oswald's life was full of wonders, so
his reign commenced with the setting up of this
famous and wonder-working cross at Hevenfeld.
So many and great were the miracles wrought both
at the place and by fragments of the cross, that in
Bede's time it was common to cut off small chips
of the wood and soak them in water, and men or
cattle diseased were healed either by drinking of the
water or being( sprinkled with it. The monks of
Hexham were wont to repair thither on the eve of
St. Oswald's martyrdom, to keep the vigil there for
the health of his soul, to sing psalms, and say mass
for him in the morning. This ritual would, of course,
assume a different form in proportion as the Church,
by miracles wrought by God at St. Oswald's inter-
cession or through means of his relics, came to
ascertain that he was admitted into the noble army
of martyrs. One of the miracles wrought by St.
Oswald's cross took place in Bede's own days. One
of the monks of Hexham, whose name was Bothelm,
walking incautiously on some ice during the night,
fell and broke his arm. The fracture was such as
to cause the most excruciating pain ; and hearing
that one of the brethren was going to Hevenfeld,
he asked him to bring him a piece of the venerable
wood, saying, that he had faith that God would heal
him by means of it. In the evening the monk re-
turned ; the patient seems to have been in the
refectory with the rest, and the monk gave him
some old moss which he had scraped from the sur-
face of the wood, which seems to imply a careful-
ness lest the cross should be consumed by the

KING AND MARTYR 215

frequent cutting of chips from it. Bothelm at the
time put the moss into his bosom, and for some
cause or other omitted to take it out when he lay
down to sleep. But in the middle of the night he
awoke, feeling something cold touching his side ;
and reaching out his hand to ascertain what it was,
he found his arm restored whole as if it had never
been broken.

Oswald was now in full possession of the North-
umbrian kingdom ; and his first care was to pro-
vide for the Church. The first foundation of it
had been in the southern province at York, and that
by a Roman missionary : the second foundation
was in the northern province, and by Scotch mis-
sionaries opposed to the Roman rites and customs.
On looking round him Oswald found indeed a
Church, but without a ruler. We might have sup-
posed it would have been most natural for him to
have recalled St. Paulinus : but either there were
political objections to that, as the archbishop was
the guardian of St. Edwin's children, or Oswald
himself might be prejudiced in favour of the Scottish
usages. Anyhow he betook himself to the Scotch
Church for missionaries. This might have been a
serious thing for the future welfare of the whole
Saxon Church ; and it is never to be forgotten that
the averting of schism and the restoration of uni-
formity by submission, as was most natural, to the
Roman customs, were among the obligations we are
under to St. Wilfrid, aided surely in no small degree
by the dying injunctions of the great St. Cuthbert,
himself a Scot, and brought up in Scottish usages.

There appears to have been, even at that time,

216 ST. OSWALD,

the same national character in the Scotch Church,
the same mixture of zeal and obstinacy, of austerity
and harshness, which distinguished it in after days,
and which came out so fearfully in the great
struggle, when almost the entire nation threw off
the yoke of Christ. The whole conduct of the dis-
pute about Easter and the tonsure was strongly
marked with the Scotch characteristics. A back-
wardness to adapt itself to circumstances, some-
thing like fierceness, an inclination to sectarianism,
were from time to time apparent, compensated by
a devout adherence to old traditions, a hatred of
change, a steadfast orthodoxy, a very high standard
of holiness, a severe asceticism. No two tempers
could be more opposed than those of the Churches
of Rome and Scotland at the time of which we are
now writing, and there can be little doubt which
was the higher and more Catholic of the two. Yet
Bede himself, who was very far from underrating
the differences, bears testimony to the noble and
self-denying character of the Scotch missionaries,
and the extreme devotion of their lives.

It was to this Church of Scotland, his own mother
in the faith, that Oswald no\v turned ; and from
which came forth a company of saints, whose
names are still held in deserved esteem, reverence,
and love among the inhabitants of the northern
shires of England. To the old Scotch Church
England owes Lindisfarne, and therefore all the
Catholic glories of the palatinate of Durham.

Oswald's first request for a missionary was an-
swered by the sending of Corman. His mission
entirely failed, and he himself retreated into Scot-

KING AND MARTYR 217

land. It does not exactly appear what the cause of
his failure was. Some attribute it to his ignorance
of the Saxon language ; but from his own com-
plaint it would rather seem that he had endeavoured
to introduce all at once a severe discipline which the
untutored minds and rough natures of the Saxons
could not endure. He seems to have been deficient
in winningness ; and to have been unequal to the
task of so blending suavity with strictness as not to
introduce laxity. He comes out quite as the repre-
sentative of the less pleasing characteristics of the
old Scotch Church. There is nothing which the
world has so doggedly continued to misunderstand
as the conduct of missionaries among barbarians
and misbelievers. It is ever demanding in their
conduct towards their converts a strictness which
it calls gloom and bigotry when brought near to
itself ; and unable to comprehend the pliancy there
is in Christian wisdom, and what a depth there is
in the very simplicity of its policy, men cry out
against what they call lax accommodations and a
betraying of the truth. Yet it is not a little signifi-
cant that the very persons who have been mostly
accused of this have been in their treatment of
themselves most self-denying and austere. A strict
discipline is not the remedy for a long chronic dis-
order of laxity and remissness. It amounts to an
excommunication ; and destroys souls by repelling
them from the very shadow of the influence under
which its object is to bring them. Of course it is
a difficult thing to raise the standard of holiness in
a church, a see, a parish, or a monastery, without
somewhat terrifying the minds of men ; yet it is

218 ST. OSWALD,

possible, and it is needful, to find the means of
doing so without the sudden introduction of such
a severe and ascetic discipline as one hopes to
come to at the last. The lives of half the saints on
record were spent in the successful solution of this
problem : missionaries among the heathen, bishops
in sees wasted with simony, priests in parishes lost
in ignorant superstitions, abbots in dissolute mon-
asteries. And it may be that this is the very pro-
blem which is to be somehow or other solved in
our own days among us descendants of those very
Saxons whom the zeal of Gorman failed to convert,
but whom the gentle rigours of St. Aidan built up as
living stones into a very great and glorious Church.
The tender but pure system of discipline introduced
into Italy by St. Alfonso toward the conclusion of
the last century,1 though it met with clamour and
opposition from the rigid party, has probably been
one main cause of the singular revival of spirituality
in that part of the Church.

On the return of Gorman a synod was held in
which he stated the impossibility of converting the
Saxons. This was a serious matter to the synod,
who were extremely desirous to grant Oswald's
request, and to spread the light of the truth among
their neighbours. Among the members of the
council was the monk Aidan, who addressed
Gorman in these words : " My brother, it seems to
me that you were harsher than is right with un-
taught hearers, and did not according to apostolic
discipline hold forth first the milk of gentler doc-

1 His Theologia Moratfs was first published in 1753.

KING AND MARTYR 219

trine, until nourished by degrees with the Word of
God they should be capable of imbibing more per-
fect precepts and attaining loftier practice." No
sooner had he said this than the council cried out
that Aidan ought to be made a bishop and sent to
teach the unbelievers, in that God had filled him
specially with the grace of discretion, which is the
mother of the virtues. And so Oswald was provided
with another St. Paulinus in the person of St. Aidan,
whose successors included York within their see
for thirty years, while that famous city remained
without its pall for 135 years after Paulinus had
gone to Rochester.

St. Aidan appears to have been left to fix his see
where he pleased ; and he chose the island of Lin-
disfarne, which was at no great distance from Barn-
borough, Oswald's royal city. The eight years of
Oswald's reign were almost entirely taken up with
the holy and happy duty of assisting his bishops.
Churches were built in many places ; public schools
established ; monasteries founded, and among them
the famous Abbey of Hexham, and the regular
monastic discipline of the Scots introduced into
them. Daily, says the venerable Bede, did holy
Scotchmen pass the borders preaching the Gospel
all over Northumbria, and baptizing their converts.
Very beautiful it was to see the humility of the good
king. St. Aidan not being able to speak with fluency
in English, Oswald interpreted his sermons to his
generals and ministers, having learned the Scotch
language thoroughly during his years of exile. In-
deed Oswald seems to have taken no delight in the
splendours of royalty ; but, foregoing the state in

220 ST. OSWALD,

which St. Edwin lived, he appears before us more
like a bishop than a king in all but the peculiar
functions of that sacred office. Even when his
earthly kingdom was larger than that of his pre-
decessors, he was humble and attentive to pilgrims
and the poor, and a great almsgiver. His conquests
do not appear to have cost him long or bloody
wars, or to have been acquired by worldly subtilty,
but rather to have fallen upon him by way of natural
consequence, as an adding of all other things to
one who so eminently followed first the Kingdom
of God and His righteousness. That he was not a
person of what historians call weak piety and
womanish superstitions is plain from his effecting
that great work which even St. Edwin had failed
to bring about, and which is specially referred to
St. Oswald, namely, the moulding the two adverse
bodies of his population, the Deiri and the Berni-
cians, into one united, happy, and peaceful people.
Although St. Aidan had fixed his see at Lindis-
farne, and Oswald his capital at Bamborough, the
king was not unmindful of the city of York. He
completed the Church of St. Peter there, which St.
Edwin had begun to build over the wooden oratory
of Paulinus, but had left unfinished at his death.
Still though Oswald did not neglect his southern
people the Deiri, yet his chief labours seem to
have been among the Bernicians. There was good
reason for this.1 From the labours of St. Paulinus
the southern province was in some measure sup-
plied with churches, schools, oratories, and crosses,

1 Alford sub anno 635.

.

KING AND MARTYR 221

whereas the Bernicians were almost wholly desti-
tute of them. Cadwalla's army of occupation seems
also to have been mainly fixed in Bernicia, and thus
the vestiges of Christianity had been much more
completely effaced there than among the Deiri.

Soon after his accession Oswald went to the court
of the West Saxons to demand of Kinegils his
daughter Kyneburga in marriage. This princess
is not to be confounded with the saint of that
name, the daughter of King Penda of Mercia, and
the foundress of Caistor nunnery on the river
Nen. It so happened that when Oswald was at the
West Saxon court the most holy Bishop Birinus
came to preach the Gospel to Kinegils ; and that
monarch becoming a convert to the faith, Oswald
was his sponsor at the font, the spiritual father of
the man whose son-in-law he soon afterwards be-
came, and thus the name of our saint is connected
with the foundation of the See of Dorchester. But
these events belong to the life of St. Birinus.

The reign, therefore, of King Oswald was by no
means an unimportant one in an historical or poli-
tical point of view. He was, as men speak, a
successful conqueror, a skilful statesman, and an
enlightened improver of his dominions. Yet it is
true that his life to our eyes resembles more the
life of an ecclesiastic than of a king : to our eyes,
for with us the world and its concerns have en-
croached so fearfully upon the business of our
lives that to set apart anything like a fair portion
of time to devotional exercises or the mortifications
of penance is considered proper only for ecclesi-
astics ; and thus have men come to the error of

222 ST. OSWALD,

confounding the clergy with the Church, until, per-
ceiving the consequences of such a mistake, they
charge the ambition of priests with inventing and
fostering what was but the stupid and perverse
misconception of the slothful laity. Few things are
more striking in the lives of the saints than the
wonderful manner in which kings and pontiffs were
enabled to sanctify themselves beneath the pressure
of secular business. We are told of St. Antonius of
Florence, a most energetic and sedulous bishop,
that over and above the Church offices, he contrived
to recite daily the office of our Lady and the seven
penitential psalms, together with the office for the
dead twice a week, and on every feast-day the
whole psalter. And yet this was the man who, from
an abiding sense of his being the accountable person
at the last day, would scarcely permit his vicar to
relieve him of the smallest of his episcopal duties
in that large and busy see. There is scarcely any
limit to what an earnest will may do ; and surely
there is a grave lesson to us in all this. For how
do we moderns mostly fritter our time away, making
a business of things childishly unimportant, and
calling upon the exercises of a devotional life to
give way at almost every turn to imaginary duties,
which suit our restless tempers better than the soli-
tude and silence and secret contemplation wherein
the life of the soul consists !

King Oswald was not idle when he was inter-
preting the Scotch sermons of St. Aidan. But
much of his time was spent in occupations which
had even less reference to this world than that
edifying work of humility and love. He was, as

KING AND MARTYR 223

all saints have been, a lover of heavenly contem-
plation ; and he was wont to tell his bishops that
it had pleased God at many times so to purge
his bodily vision that he had clearly beheld
the splendour of the angels and spirits, whose
offices and orders were likely to be favourite sub-
jects of meditation to a mind constituted as his
was. Feeling how intimately allied the grace of
chastity was with this blissful communion with the
world of spirit, he prevailed upon his queen to
consent to their living a life of continence, that so
they might more resemble those happy spirits who
neither marry nor are given in marriage, and might
the rather become to them an object of special love,
ministry and protection.

His hours of devotion were stolen from sleep
rather than from the toils of government. He
rose at midnight for the nocturns and lauds, and
when the office was over he remained in prayer
till it was day. Such a habit of recollection and
prayer did the holy king attain that in all times
and places he was praying ; and whenever he sat
down it came natural to him to turn up his hands
upon his knees in act of prayer : an attitude which
is not unfrequently to be seen in old illuminations.
It became, St. Bede tells'us, a popular proverb that
King Oswald died in prayer ; for when he was sur-
rounded by the weapons of his enemies he cried,
as he fell to the ground, " Lord ! have mercy on
their souls ! " a petition which might perhaps have
a double reference, as well to those of his own
soldiers who perished as to his enemies who slew
him.

LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

224 ST. OSWALD,

As it was thus vouchsafed him at the close of his
life to copy the example of our blessed Lord, so
on another occasion was it permitted him to act
over again the part of holy David, and yet therein
to copy our Lord also. During his reign there
broke out a dreadful pestilence among his people,
so that nothing was to be seen all round but
funerals, nothing heard but the lamentations of
the affrighted survivors. This mournful spectacle
weighed heavy on the spirit of King Oswald ; and
though it does not appear that the plague was
lying on the people because of the monarch's sins,
yet he humbly entreated God to take himself and
his family as victims of the cruel disease, and to
spare his people. Of course none but a very holy
person could venture without profaneness on such
a prayer as this : and, like St. Paul's supplication
for Israel, it was perhaps offered up under the
inspiration of the Holy Ghost. To pray for the
high and awful privileges of suffering is something
more than to covet them. Love will prompt even
those whose obedience is but scant and sorry
measure to covet earnestly for poverty, contempt,
obscurity, loneliness and pain, who yet would feel
that it was unbecoming for men of their poor
attainments to pray directly for such things, lest
the petition should spring from a momentary heat,
not from a bold and steadfast tranquillity, and then
it would be so very dreadful were God to answer it,
and we to fail beneath the trial.

But what is so bold as simplicity and a single
heart ? It was in this temper that Oswald offered
up his venturous prayer ; and most graciously,

KING AND MARTYR 225

because most literally, was it answered. He was
seized by the plague with unusual violence ; it
would seem from the narrative as though there was
something unusual in the severity of the attack.
Yet who so joyful as the suffering king ? It was
so directly a visitation of God, as to be a great
consolation to one who thirsted after that blessed
Presence as the hart desireth the water-brooks.
And there he lay upon his cross, an acceptable ex-
piation, through the meritorious intercession of his
Lord, for the sins of his people. While he thus
lay expecting death, offering his life for the life of
others, he beheld in an ecstasy three figures of
unearthly form and stature, who came to his bed-
side, and spoke comfortable words to him. At
length one of them said, "Thy prayers and meek-
ness, O king, are accepted with God ; thou be-
longest to us, for as a reward of thy faith, charity,
and piety thou shall shortly be crowned with an
immortal crown. But not at present : God giveth
thee now both thy life and thy subjects' lives : thou
art ready to die a martyr for them ; but thou shalt
soon die far more happily as a martyr for God."
After this the vision disappeared, leaving the king
full of inward joy and consolation. His bodily
health was now restored ; the infection went no
further, for the plague was stayed in the person of
the saint, and the angel of wrath appeased by his
self-sacrifice.1

1 This story is given on the authority of Capgrave, not of Bede : not
that there seems any reason for doubting its truth ; yet as the rest of
St. Oswald's life (except what is said of his frequently seeing angels)
is supported by the unimpeachable testimony of Bede, it seemed better
to mark what was not.

VOL. IV, P

226 ST. OSWALD,

The same heroic simplicity characterised his giv-
ing of alms. Indeed there seems hardly any virtue
which calls more for the readiness and single-
mindedness of faith than alms-giving. There are
so many apparent reasons against it : the brevity
and absoluteness of the evangelical rule so little
squares with the circumstances of society in any
age : it seems to be so constantly on the point of
sacrificing discretion to impulse, that really a person
to be a cheerful and hearty alms-giver must have
advanced some way towards that childlike temper
which is the perfection of our regenerate nature.
People forget that He who gives His sunshine and
His rain to the evil and good is set before us as
our pattern in the corporal and spiritual works of
mercy. The generosity of the world — and it has
its ages of generosity — invents for itself a cumbrous
and slowly moving system, a huge and complicated
apparatus for dispensing alms ; but all which it
attains is the neglect of some deserving objects
through fear of blessing any undeserving, an end
not worth attaining, if it were right, but which, if
we are to copy God, is absolutely wrong. At best
heartiness evaporates in the long and secular pro-
cess, and secrecy which is the life of evangelical
alms is rendered most difficult, and self-forgetfulness
in the matter well-nigh impossible ; yet surely even
self-forgetfulness, which is something more than
secrecy, is plainly intimated in our Saviour's words.

A popular book descants with almost con-
temptuous pity on the mistaken philanthropy of
St. Charles Borromeo. To such minds the follow-
ing anecdote of St. Oswald will seem to record

KING AND MARTYR 227

nothing beyond an unwise impulse countenanced
by a superstitious bishop. However, it will be
both soothing and edifying to those who have felt
how hard it is to restrain those impulses to feed
the hungry and to clothe the naked, when the
occasions present themselves, or, say rather, are
providentially brought to us, on days when the
Church is in joy and at feast for some great thing
wrought for her by her Lord. It was on Easter
Day that King Oswald sat at dinner, with a fitting
Easter guest, the holy Bishop Aidan. Before him
stood a silver dish full of kingly dainties, and they
were on the point of lifting up their hands to bless
the bread, when suddenly a servitor appeared who
filled a characteristic office in the royal household
— to look out for and relieve the poor. He knew
his master too well to fear it would be any dis-
turbance to him at his feast to tell him that the
streets about the palace were thronged with poor
asking an alms of the king. Oswald's eyes fell on
the silver dish and the royal dainties, and without
a moment's hesitation he ordered the dainties to be
divided among the poor, and the sumptuous dish
to be cut in pieces and distributed amongst them.
Probably as he spoke he raised his right hand to
make some gesture to the servant, possibly pointing
to the lordly dish. St. Aidan was at his side :
delighted with the pious act he seized his master's
hand, and said, " May this hand never perish ! "
and the bishop's benediction was fulfilled, for the
hand and arm, severed from his body in the battle,
remained uncorrupted down to St. Bede's time,
and received the veneration of the faithful in St.

228 ST. OSWALD,

Peter's church at Bamborough. No doubt the
common fare which was left for the king was
better seasoned than the dainties he had given to
the poor : and a merry heart was Oswald's Easter
feast that year.

These are but grapes from Eshcol, samples of
what the good King Oswald did and said during
the eight years of his earthly reign : enough is left
on record for the love and homage of the faithful,
the rest is known to God ; some going before the
martyr to judgment, and some following after ; for
if sinners bequeath their sins in legacy to their
descendants, much more do the mighty relics of
the saints continue to edify and bless the Church.

The reign of this holy king closed in the year
642. Penda, the pagan tyrant who had slain St.
Edwin, invaded the dominions of St. Oswald. A
battle was fought at Maserfeld on the 5th of August,
Oswald being thirty-eight years of age. The hour
predicted by the three heavenly personages was
now come, when he was to be offered up a martyr
to God. Many persons find a difficulty in the use
of the word martyr, as sanctioned by the Church.
They would have it restricted to such as made
a theological confession of the faith before the
tribunal of heathen magistrates, and suffered unto
death for such confession. Yet surely this is a
narrow view to take of the matter. Whosoever
witnesses to Christ by his death is in some sense a
martyr, and as such witness may take almost in-
numerable shapes and be capable of manifold
degrees, so in a fuller or remoter sense, from the
quiet death-bed of a saint to the shows of the

KING AND MARTYR 229

amphitheatre, may the word martyrdom be applied
to the dying confession of a Christian. There
can be little doubt that Penda's hatred of Oswald
arose in no slight measure from his being a
Christian; and the interests of the Church seemed
humanly speaking to be involved in the success
of Oswald.

However, Oswald was slain upon the field. His
forces were far inferior to the pagan army, and it
pleased God to take him to Himself. When the
weapons of his enemies were bristling above his
head, and he was overshadowed with them as by a
grove of trees, he prayed the prayer before alluded
to, and breathed his last beneath a multitude of
wounds. There seems in the reverence paid to
him in after-ages something of affection mingled
as for a young person ; and his youth is dwelt
upon as if it were a resting-point for love. So
when he is said to have appeared to Earnan the
monk of Lindisfarne together with St. Cuthbert in
Durham Abbey, he was clothed in a red robe, his
face was long, his stature tall, his beard scarcely
visible from his youth, and altogether a most
beautiful young man ; and the monk seems to
bring out his youth in contrast with the vener-
able and awe - inspiring visage of the mighty
Cuthbert.

There is a controversy respecting Maserfeld, the
scene of Oswald's martyrdom. Camden, Capgrave,
Raine and others place it at Oswestry in Shrop-
shire, and the name certainly goes some way toward
a proof of their opinion. Alban Butler, Powel, and
Cowper place it at Winwick in Lancashire, and for

230 ST. OSWALD,

their view there is an inscription on the outside of
the south wall of the parish church ; and certainly
Win wick was in aftertimes distinguished by a special
devotion for St. Oswald.

No sooner was Oswald dead than the brutal
Penda caused his head and arms to be severed
from his body and stuck on poles. They appear
to have remained on the battlefield till the follow-
ing year, when Oswy removed them, and sent the
head to Lindisfarne. But the lives of saints in
many cases do not end with their deaths : their
influence over the visible Church is often more
signally exerted through their relics than it was
in their sojourn upon earth. Somewhat of that
power which they now have in their glorified state
is permitted to be transfused into their mortal
remains, and through them to act upon the
Church. Many of the saints have lived and died
almost in obscurity, whose relics have worked
wonders for centuries ; God who saw them in
secret while on earth thus manifesting them
openly after He has taken them from us.

The rest of St. Oswald's relics were afterwards
translated by Queen Ofthrida, the daughter of Oswy,
and niece of the saint, to her favourite monastery
of Bardney in Lincolnshire. The car freighted with
this precious burden arrived at the gates of the
monastery when it was growing dusk. The monks,
though they acknowledged his sanctity, refused to
admit the relics on the ground of his having reigned
over them as a foreigner. This was an unexpected
obstacle. Meanwhile a large tent was pitched over
the car to protect the sacred remains from the dew,

KING AND MARTYR 231

and to show at least some reverence towards them.
As the night became dark a long luminous pillar
stood over the car, and seemed to reach to heaven.
It was seen far and wide, so that well-nigh all the
inhabitants of Lincolnshire were witnesses of this
miraculous attestation of King Oswald's sanctity.
It is not impossible that the refusal of the monks of
Bardney to admit the relics on the previous evening
had some connection with St. Oswald's adoption of
the Scotch usages. His being a foreigner in an
ecclesiastical sense would sink deeper in the minds
of holy brethren given up, like the angels, to per-
petual liturgy and divine ceremonial, than his
merely being a temporal ruler usurping the throne
of St. Edwin's children. However this may be,
the miraculous splendour which rested during the
night above the relics seemed clearly a heavenly
token, to which they joyfully submitted, and prayed
with much earnestness to be allowed now to receive
into their monastery the remains of one so dear to
God. The bones were carefully washed, and de-
posited in a shrine within the Church, above which
was hung a banner of purple and of gold. The
water in which the relics had been washed was
poured out reverently in a corner of the consecrated
enclosure, and the earth which it had moistened
was gifted with the power of casting out devils.

Even the ground where it fell received into it a
power of miracle. Men scraped up the dust, and
putting it into water administered it to their sick,
and they were healed : it being no wonder, as Bede
beautifully remarks, that it should work this kind of
miracles, inasmuch as when alive the Saint had

232 ST. OSWALD,

been so distinguished for his care of the poor and
ailing. We are told, on the same authority, that
not very long after his death, and the removal of his
relics, a traveller was journeying near the place
where he fell. His horse, through fatigue or some
other cause, was seized with a violent fit, and rolled
on the ground, foaming. The rider expected every
moment to see the beast die, when, to his astonish-
ment, it happened to roll upon the very spot where
Oswald fell, and immediately the fit ceased, and
after turning quietly from side to side the horse
rose and began to eat the grass. The traveller did
not know he was on the spot where the king was
slain ; but there was something so evidently miracu-
lous in the cure that he felt convinced there was
some special sanctity in the place, and carefully set
a mark upon it that he might know it again. Such
was the turn of men's minds in ages when the
invisible world was so much more vividly realised
than it is now, when the blinding veils of science,
falsely so called, intervene to rescue men from the
irksome contemplation of the awful realities of the
unseen world. At the inn where the traveller
halted for the evening, the landlord's niece lay sick
of the palsy, and, while the people in the house
were deploring her illness, he recounted what had
happened to his horse. Faith was not wanting in
the people : the patient was taken in a cart, and
laid down on the spot where Oswald died, there
fell asleep, and awoke cured of her infirmity,
returning on foot to the house.

Another traveller, of whom Bede speaks, was
passing by the battle-field, when he observed a

KING AND MARTYR 233

place round which the herbage was unusually
green. He, arguing as the other had done, con-
cluded that the soldier slain there, whoever he was,
was the holiest man of the host : whereupon he
put a quantity of the earth into a linen cloth, in-
tending to use it for the cure of sick people. At
night he came to a village, and was invited into a
house where the master was feasting his neighbours,
and he hung the cloth containing the earth upon a
post in the wall. The house was thatched and the
walls merely wattled, and a huge fire burned in the
centre. From the carelessness of conviviality the
fire seems to have been neglected, and some sparks
communicating with the thatch, a conflagration
ensued. The house was entirely burned down,
except the post on which the earth was hung, and
that remained miraculously untouched by the
flames. In consequence of these two miracles
pilgrims began to frequent the place where St.
Oswald fell, either for the cure of their own in-
firmities, or to fetch earth for the healing of their
relatives.

When Queen Ofthrida, who removed St. Oswald's
relics to Bardney, was once upon a visit at that
monastery, there came to stay with her an abbess,
the venerable Ethelhilda. In conversation the
abbess mentioned how she had seen the luminous
column which stood over the body of Oswald,
when it was excluded from the monastery : the
queen in turn related how even the dust of the
pavement, whereon the water in which his bones
had been washed was poured, had healed many
sick people. Ethelhilda before her departure from

234 ST. OSWALD,

Bardney requested that some of the dust might be
given her. This she deposited as a rich treasure in a
casket, and went her way. Soon after, there came
to her monastery a guest who was possessed with a
devil ; and the night of his arrival the evil spirit took
him so that he foamed at the mouth, and gnashed
his teeth, and all his limbs were distorted. No one
being able to hold him, alarm was given to the
abbess, who, going with one of the nuns to the door
of the man's apartment, called for a priest to go
with her to her guest. The exorcisms of the priest
proved unavailing. At last the abbess bethought
her of the sacred dust. No sooner was it brought
into the porch of the room where the sufferer was
than the convulsions ceased. The man sat up, and
sighing deeply, like one wearied, said, " Now am I
sound, and have received the senses of my mind."
Whereupon he was asked how he had come to
himself, and he answered, " Presently when that
virgin came with the casket to the threshold the
spirits who vexed me disappeared." The abbess
gave him a little of the holy dust, and he was never
troubled by his enemy again.

In the monastery of Bardney, before mentioned,
there was a little boy who had been long tormented
by the ague. One day, when he was mournfully
anticipating the periodical return of his fit, a monk
said to him, " Child ! shall I tell you how to get
rid of this infirmity ? Rise, go into the church,
and sit by Oswald's tomb, stay there quietly, and
do not leave the place. Do not stir till the hour
of the return of the fever is past ; then I will come
in and fetch you away." The boy did so ; the

KING AND MARTYR 235

disease did not fall on him while he sat by the
Saint's grave, and after persevering in this de-
votion two or three days, the ague left him
altogether.

But it was not only in England that many won-
ders were wrought by his relics. In Ireland also,
and in Germany, were miracles performed through
the intercession of St. Oswald. Wilbrord was wont
to speak of what prodigies had been performed
among the Prisons, and it formed part of that holy
man's conversation with Wilfrid while the latter
stayed with him. And one miracle specially Wil-
brord related, as having happened in Ireland when
he was a priest. A great pestilence broke out, and
among its victims was a certain scholar, addicted
to worldly literature, but hitherto not concerned
about his soul. As his death drew near, the scholar's
mind became overshadowed by the fear of hell.
In his terror he sent for Wilbrord, who was in the
neighbourhood, and with a broken voice com-
plained to him : " My disease increases, and I am
now about to die ; and I doubt not that after the
death of my body, my soul will be carried away
into the torments of hell, for although I have
studied divinity, yet have I been engaged in vice
rather than in keeping the Divine laws. But I am
resolved, if God's mercy should spare me, to correct
my evil habits, and submit my whole life to the
Divine Will. Yet I know I do not deserve to have
my life prolonged, neither can I expect it except
through the aid of those who have faithfully served
God. We have heard, for it is everywhere spoken
of, that there has been in your country a wonder-

236 ST. OSWALD,

fully holy king, called Oswald, the excellency of
whose faith and holiness has even after death been
attested by many miracles. I pray you, if you have
any of his relics, bring them to me ; peradventure
the Lord will please for his merits to have pity upon
me." Wilbrord answered that he had some of the
stake on which his head was impaled ; and asked
him if he had faith in God's goodness and the holi-
ness of St. Oswald. The sufferer replied that he
had : whereupon Wilbrord blessed some water and
put a chip of the holy oak into it, and the sick man
drank, and was healed. Through Divine grace he
kept his vow, and became an eminent servant of
God.

Thus did it please God to glorify His servant
St. Oswald. Of his blessed relics nothing more
need now be said, except that when the monks fled
from Lindisfarne it seems that St. Oswald's head
was put into the same coffin with the body of the
mighty Cuthbert, and with it performed the same
long and mysterious pilgrimage from east to west,
and back again to the east, until it reposed in the
lordly Abbey of Durham. " Deus, qui glorificatur
in consilio sanctorum, magnus et terribilis super
omnes qui in circuitu ejus."

It would seem that public and authorised rever-
ence was soon paid to the relics of St. Oswald, and
we know that they were carried about during the
Danish invasion, in such way as to show that they
were very much set by. But there is a miracle, or
as the modern Italians would more correctly say, a
grazia, recorded in the fourth book of St. Bede's
history, which seems to be connected with the

KING AND MARTYR 237

first public celebration of St. Oswald's day. The
monastery of Selsey, founded by St. Wilfrid, was
ravaged in 68 1 by a fierce pestilence while Eappa
was abbot. The monks, in order to deprecate the
Divine Wrath, set apart three days for solemn
fasting and prayer. At this time there was in the
monastery a little Saxon boy, recently converted,
and who was confined to his bed by the plague.
He was a boy of unusually gentle disposition and
mild demeanour, and a deep reverence for the faith
he had lately learned ; and altogether one whose
simplicity would render him a likely person to be
favoured with a heavenly vision. While he was
lying^alone in the infirmary about seven in the
morning of the second fast-day, there appeared
to him in vision two wonderful personages, who
saluted him very lovingly, and said, " You are un-
easy about death, young child ; but do not fear it,
for we are come to carry you to-day to the heavenly
kingdom. However, you must first wait till the
masses are said, and you must receive the viaticum
of the Lord's Body and Blood, and so freed at once
from infirmity and death, you shall be carried up
to the eternal joys of heaven. Now, then, call the
priest Eappa, and tell him that the Lord has heard
your prayers, and turned a gracious eye on your
devotion and fasting: no one, therefore, of this
monastery, or its neighbouring possessions, shall
henceforth die of this plague. All who are at
present labouring under it, among your people,
shall recover from their sickness, except yourself,
and you shall this day be freed by death, and taken
to the vision of our Lord Christ, whom you have

238 ST. OSWALD,

faithfully served. The Divine mercy has granted
this through the intercession of the religious King
Oswald, dear to God, who formerly reigned over
the Northumbrians with the authority both of
temporal power and Christian sanctity, which leads
to an eternal kingdom. For it was on this same
day that that king was slain in battle by the infidels,
and was presently assumed to the eternal joys of
souls, and enrolled among the armies of the elect.
Let them consult their books, which contain the
obituaries, and they will find that he was on this
day taken out of the world. Let them then say
mass in all the oratories of this monastery, as well
in thanksgiving for their prayers being heard, as
in commemoration of King Oswald, who once
governed their nation. On this account it was
that he suppliantly offered up his prayers for
them as for strangers of his people, and let all
the brethren be convened in church, and let them
all communicate in the Heavenly Sacrifice, and
give over fasting, and refresh their bodies with
food."

These words the little Saxon boy duly related to
Eappa, who made particular inquiries as to the
dress and appearance of the persons who had ap-
peared to him. The boy told him that they were
noble and beautiful beyond what he could have
conceived, and that the one was bearded, but the
other shorn like a clerk, and that one was called
Peter and the other Paul, and that Jesus had sent
them to protect the monastery. Eappa, referring
to the chronicles, found that it was really the
anniversary of St Oswald's death. The masses

KING AND MARTYR 239

were said, all communicated, the little boy re-
ceived the viaticum, and the fast was broken ;
and before sunset the boy died, and the plague
ceased, and ever after St. Oswald's day was
observed, and a very solemn mass celebrated
thereon.

THE LIFE OF
ST. O S W I N

KING AND MARTYR, A.D. 651

IT is impossible to write of that fair portion of our
native land, which was the kingdom of St. Edwin,
St. Oswald, and St. Oswin, without reflecting upon
its present state and the changes it has undergone.
It is no longer the land of greenwood, blythe forester
and open-hearted baron and wandering ballad-
monger: but the world must change, if for no other
reason at least for this, that it may sicken its children
of putting confidence in it, and too much work lies
before us of the nineteenth century to allow us to
stand still to be merely poetical in our regrets. So
let the baron go, and the ballad-monger, though
there might be much about them which was the
type of a healthier and heartier state of things.
But Northumberland is no longer the land of royal
monasteries, of sacred shrines, of ennobling tra-
ditions, of active Catholicism, or an effective Church.
It is a region of ecclesiastical ruins, of upbraiding
memorials of the past, with materials which Church-
men in their present position have no room to act

upon, however zealous and self-denying they may

240

KING AND MARTYR 241

be. Using the word Northumberland in its old
sense, not for the modern county only, the face of
the land is literally darkened, the sun obscured,
the verdure tinged, the waters dyed, by the con-
sequences of that mineral wealth for which it is
now so famous the whole world over. And more
than this — what concerns us more nearly is that
there are cumbrous clouds of population, almost
homeless, swaying here and there as the changes
and the swervings of trade and employment propel
them ; a sight sufficient to paralyse the parish
priest, a monster which the mere parochial system
cannot dream of coping with ; and contemporane-
ously with this new startling phenomenon, so well
has Satan contrived his schemes that the ecclesi-
astical wealth of the palatinate is drained off from
its proper localities just when it was most wanted.
How easy does it seem for our holy mother the
Church to pour forth an itinerant army of rough
and eloquent friars into this mass of sin, wretched-
ness and disorder, and by God's help to make it
instinct with Catholic life and purity, how sure the
results, how infinitely blessed ! Yet are we so tied
and bound by our sins, by a poor feeble unhealth-
ful system which is the consequence of sin, that we
must needs sit still and with drooping hearts con-
fide to money and to stone chapels and material
school-houses the mission given at the first, and
for ever, to flesh and blood, to living apostolic
teachers. But let us be content : mayhap we have
not vital heat and active nerve enough within us to
throw out such a power of ardent life as would be
necessary to compass these huge masses of people ;

VOL. IV. Q

242 ST. OSWIN,

for the present let it suffice us to be working that
way, and seek for consolation from those wells of
hope for the future, the actual deeds and sufferings
of a better past : and with this thought let us go to
the scanty notices which we have left of Oswin, the
humble and the affable, who ruled the kingdom of
Northumberland in the seventh age. And as to the
trammels of our ailing system, think what thousands
of monks are chanting every tierce, " Memor fui
judiciorum tuorum a saeculo, Domine ; et con-
solatus sum."

When the monk of Tynemouth was asked by his
brethren to write the life and martyrdom of St.
Oswin,1 he found in the reign of King Stephen a
copiousness and a scarcity of materials. It was
hard to say which of the two embarrassed him
most ; for on the one hand Bede had said very
little, and what Bede had not said was very
likely apocryphal, and on the other there was a
great desire to write a life, an edifying life, of a
saint so highly venerated among the northern
Catholics. However, he resolved to follow Bede,
and to dilate only upon those many miracles which
had been wrought through the intercession or by
the relics of St. Oswin. We must be content, there-
fore, to take St. Oswin as one of the cases not
uncommon in hagiology, where what is actually
known of the saint is quite disproportioned to the
extent and degree of veneration paid to him by
Christians. This may be partly owring to the
copiousness of posthumous miracles, as with the

1 Published by the Surtees Society from the MS. Cotton, Julius,
A. X.

KING AND MARTYR 243

nameless remains of martyrs in the catacombs to
which some arbitrary title, as of a Christian virtue,
has been given ; and partly to the fact that where an
immediate and widely spread popular devotion to a
saint arose, men did not at first think of recording
what everybody about them knew without reading.
Oswin was the son of Osric, king of the Deiri, the
monarch who unhappily apostatised from the faith,
and was afterwards slain by the bloody Cadwalla
of Cumberland. At the time of his father's death
Oswin appears to have been quite a child, so that,
being beneath the notice of the vindictive con-
queror, his friends managed to carry him off
among the West Saxons. It would seem that he
was baptized while young, either before his father
was slain, or when he was first taken among the
Christian subjects of Kinegils. He lived in exile
for ten long years, greatly edifying those among
whom he dwrelt. He was very beautiful, tall of
stature, and of a particularly engaging address ;
but thege things, which to most young men are
calamities, as being so many occasions of falling, he
turned to the glory of God. Among other virtues
he was so conspicuous for the grace of chastity
that his biographer compares him to Joseph while
dwelling among the Egyptians. Among posterity
generally his more especial grace was thought to
be humility ; and indeed it is very observable how
intimately connected a lowly mind seems to be
with pure thoughts, so that one virtue appears to
follow as a consequence upon the other. For
bashfulness which is the shield of purity is close
upon humility.

244 ST. OSWIN,

Like so many other of the Saxon kings, Oswin
learned the art of reigning in the school of exile.
After the death of St. Oswald Oswy became king
of the Bernicians ; Oswin returned from exile, and
either by Oswy's adoption, as some say, or by the
election of the nobles, according to others, was
raised to the throne of the Deiri. When we come
within the sphere of the Church, how the jarring
sounds of earthly strife seem all stilled ! Saint
reigns after saint among the Northumbrians, yet
the reign of one is the exile of the other ; the term
of power with the one is exactly the term of de-
pression with the other. Yet the exile is God's
school ; there the saint was made, and Oswald
seems as it were the stern author of the sanctity of
Oswin. So it was with Oswald himself : the death
of the blessed Edwin opens the gates of his native
land to the fugitive prince, the future king and
saint. Thus is evil temporary : thus even in time
is the Church anticipating the eternal order of
things, weeding out evil from the creation of God,
gathering it into bundles, and burning it. Thus
while history is a continuous record of splendid
sins, the lives of the saints have also their con-
tinuity ; to the world's eye much is left out of what
forms the history of a nation, but holy legends
teach us to see the course of things more as angels
see it, laying bare the footprints of the Most High,
and revealing the under-current of history, slow and
tranquil and imperturbed as the peace which is
around the Throne invisible. The secular details
of Oswin's reign are not preserved to us ; doubtless
they were full of that consistency and sagacity

KING AND MARTYR 245

which high principle invariably displays. The
general results, however, are told us ; they were
peace, order, and the happiness of those beneath
his sway. We may be sure also that ecclesiastical
matters prospered under his care ; for there existed
the closest friendship between the sovereign and
the holy Bishop Aidan. Oswin's biographer, the
monk of Tynemouth, beautifully exclaims, " O man
full of piety ! O worthy of a crown ! In that time
the most blessed Bishop Aidan ruled with his pas-
toral care the province of the Northumbrians. He
was a Scot by birth, Catholic in his faith. St.
Oswald the king had raised him to the episcopate,
and by his preaching Divine grace had converted
no small number of the people to the faith of Christ.
It was this holy man's custom to teach the people
committed to his charge, not in the Church only,
but seeing how tender the young faith yet was, he
went about the province entering the houses of the
believers, and sowing the seed of the divine word
in the field of their hearts, as each one was able to
receive it. This man, so careful of the flock en-
trusted to him, used often to come to St. Oswin,
king of the Deiri, and stay with him on account of
the sweet odour of his sanctity. He admonished
him to persevere in good works, and always to be
advancing to better things, and the summits of per-
fection, and, taught by the Holy Spirit, he fore-
warned him how that he must pass to the heavenly
kingdom through martyrdom. The king, receiving
him as a saint, gave diligent heed to his preaching
the words of life ; and holding himself in devout
subjection to that most beloved father, he corrected

246 ST. OSWIN,

at his reproof whatsoever he had done amiss. The
bishop indeed was beyond measure delighted with
the humility and obedience of the king, and often
held familiar converse with him about the contempt
of the world, the sweetness of a heavenly life, and
the glory of the saints. The king was by no means
a forgetful hearer of the Word of God, but a zealous
doer of the same ; and, according as he had learned
from his good master, he took care of all with a
fatherlike affection, benignantly relieving the poor
and especially strangers, feeding the hungry, cloth-
ing the naked, and bestowing favours with alacrity
upon all who asked them. There was between
them such a confederacy of mutual love, that the
king held the holy bishop for an angel, and obeyed
his suggestions as though they were inspired. The
bishop on the other hand loved the king as though
he were part of his own soul, one while upbraiding
him as a son if he were too much occupied, as men
are wont to be, in secular matters, another while
cherishing and inflaming him like a dear friend
with spiritual conversation. " 1

A most beautiful example of this intercourse
between the bishop and the king has been left on
record for our edification. We have already alluded
to St. Aidan's custom of making circuits through his
diocese and entering houses and catechising. These
pastoral journeys he mostly performed on foot, after
the example of our blessed Lord, of whom we read
only once that He rode upon an ass, entering His
own city in such meek triumphal guise that the

1 Vita S. Oswini, c. i. sub fin.

KING AND MARTYR 247

prophet's words might be fulfilled. Personal fatigue
and hardship and what the world would call loss of
time were not the only disadvantages which the
holy prelate sustained. The frequent rivers and
streams of the northern shires of England, for the
most part rapid and stony, were to be forded often
at the risk of life. To save the bishop from this
peril, as well as to lighten his labours, Oswin made
him a present of a very valuable horse, which St.
Aidan accepted. Possibly the bishop put less value
upon it than the king, for riding would not be so
favourable as walking to the constant self-recollec-
tion and mental prayer which he doubtless practised
on his journeys, making the intervals of passage
from place to place in some measure to compensate
the loss of that former monastic leisure which he
had cheerfully given up for the edification of his
neighbour. However this may be, Oswin's horse
did not stay long with St. Aidan. For soon after
the present had been made, the bishop mounted on
his horse, adorned with rich and royal trappings,
met a beggar who asked him for an alms. The
saint with the utmost alacrity dismounted from his
steed, and presented it with all its furniture to the
poor man. Either that day or shortly afterwards
St. Aidan was to dine with the king ; before dinner
some one told Oswin of what was perhaps con-
sidered the slight put by the bishop on the royal
beneficence. As they were going to the banquet
Oswin said, " My Lord Bishop ! why did you give
to a poor man that royal horse which it was more
fitting to keep for your own use ? Have we not
plenty of horses of less price and of commoner

248 ST. OSWIN,

sorts which would have been good enough for gifts
to the poor without your giving them that one
which I had particularly selected for your own
possession ? " Whether the king spoke as if nettled
by the apparent slight, or complainingly as if hurt
by the want of attachment shown in parting so
lightly with a friend's gift, we are not told ; but the
bishop was ready with his answer, "What is that
you say, O king ? Is that foal of a mare dearer to
you than that son of God ?" meaning the beggar.
It would seem from the narrative that Oswin was
somewhat out of temper, and was brooding over the
matter in his mind. For when they entered the
banquet-room the bishop went and sat down in his
accustomed place, while the king, who had just
returned from hunting, stood and warmed himself
at the fire. Perhaps there was something of an
inward struggle going on. If so, it soon was over ;
for as he stood by the fire, he pondered the bishop's
words, and suddenly ungirding his sword and
giving it to a servant, he fell down at St. Aidan's
feet and besought his forgiveness. " Never again,"
said the humbled king, " will I say any more of
this, or take upon myself to judge what or how
much of my treasure you bestow upon the sons of
God." The bishop was much moved, and starting
up he raised his sovereign, declaring that he was
entirely reconciled to him, and begging that he
would be seated and enjoy the banquet. Oswin
did as the bishop said, and with the elasticity of
spirits which ever follows close upon humbling
ourselves to confess what we have done wrong, the
king grew merry at the feast. But the countenance

KING AND MARTYR 249

of the bishop saddened, and the more light-hearted
the good king became, so much the more was St.
Aidan lost in silence and sorrow, and kept shedding
tears. It chanced that a priest sat near, a Scot, who
asked his bishop in the Scottish tongue, which the
king did not understand, why he wept. " I know
well," said Aidan, " that the king will not live long ;
for never have I seen before a prince so humble ;
wherefore I feel assured that he will soon be taken
our of this life, for this nation is not worthy to have
such a sovereign." This, whether it were prophecy,
or that foreboding which men seem naturally to
have when they look on great goodness, was too
truly fulfilled.

Such was the intercourse between bishop and
king, when both were saints ; and the monk of
Tynemouth beautifully comments on it. "Truly
the strict demand of equity is that the inferior
should be willingly subject to the power of the
superior. Nevertheless, growth in righteousness
brings it about that an equal sometimes submits
to an equal ; but that the superior should humble
himself before the inferior comes only from the
perfection of consummate righteousness. Where-
fore the Great Creator humbling Himself to the
baptism of His inferior creature, when the other
shrunk, said, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it
becometh us to fulfil all righteousness, as though
He meant by the superior humbling himself to the
inferior. This perfection of righteousness in the
blessed King Oswin, taught not by literary pro-
fession but by the unction of the Holy Paraclete,
when forgetful of his regal majesty he lay at his

250 ST. OSWIN,

bishop's feet, not only called out the wondering
admiration of the wild people which he governed,
but even kindled in religious fathers by his example
a love of humiliation. But the bishops of those
days were not, as now,1 pre-eminent in the insolent
affluence of wealth, or the pompous luxury of
precious vestments, even beyond secular folk, but
poor in spirit, poor in means, and so easily open
to contempt ; and on that very account it was all
the more laudable to pay reverence unto them." 2

Oswin's biographer goes on to say that there
were on record many other examples of his great
humility, but that he will not relate them lest he
should dwell too much on one of his virtues to the
depreciation of the rest. One may regret that the
good monk has robbed us through such an ill-
founded apprehension. Next to humility merci-
fulness is counted as a special grace of Oswin's,
mercifulness not only in the giving of alms, but in
what often involves greater self-sacrifice and patience
and alacrity — in succouring the oppressed. At the
same time he exhibited firmness and even forward-
ness (acredo) in repressing those who were dis-
obedient to his laws. Neither were the interior
exercises of a spiritual life forgotten ; he watched,
he fasted, he prayed ; and it was in those things
and out of those things that he got his humility.
Such were the virtues with which "that soul
devoted to God was green as the spring, becomingly
and abundantly."

It would appear as if Oswy almost from the very

1 i.e. in the days of King Stephen.
z Vit. Osw, c. ii. sub fin.

KING AND MARTYR 251

first found it hard to brook the division of the
kingdom, which the rule of St. Oswald had moulded
into one. If then it were he who raised Oswin to
the throne of the Deiri, he must have quickly
repented of his own measure ; or if the elevation
of our saint were owing to the election of the
nobles, it was probably distasteful to Oswy at the
outset, but that circumstances controlled his op-
position or made it necessary for him to dissemble.
The very sanctity of Oswin, being in the mouths
of all, Bernicians as well as Deiri, was gall to Oswy,
and fostered his malignant envy. As the monk
words it, Oswy tried the serpent, before he took
to the lion. In other words, he endeavoured for
long to compass the death of Oswin by subtlety.
But the love and fidelity of all around him was a
shield which the dagger of the assassin could never
penetrate. Sometimes the schemes of Oswy were
detected or anticipated by the shrewdness of his
intended victim : at other times Oswin was warned
of them by the very men who were compelled to
act as the instruments of Oswy. Thus passed
seven years of outward peace and outward glory
for Oswin ; but we learn from this that even the
throne was as it were a school of affliction. The
continual sense of insecurity, the harassing con-
tinuance of suspicion, the weary diligence of ward-
ing off blows, the restlessness of being on the
watch, the wretched feeling of having one enemy,
of being a hunted thing — such was the ermine
which lined St. Oswin's crown ; the very kind of
life which God gave his servant David wherewithal
to sanctify himself.

252 ST. OSWIN,

It is said that the reverence, which the character
of St. Aidan compelled even from the dark-minded
Oswy, was the main cause that for seven years
outward peace was kept. Two years followed of
still greater trial for Oswin. We are not told why ;
only it is recorded that these two years were
more troubled than the foregoing ones : possibly
the impatience of envy was unable to wear its
disguise any longer, and broke out into more
frequent displays of malignity. Besides which
Oswy was enraged at being baffled by the saga-
cious gentleness of his enemy, and in half abhor-
rence of his own meanness took refuge in the
more masculine wickedness of open rage. To
borrow the monk's similitude of the animals, weary
and ashamed of crawling he resolved to roar and
to devour ; and at last gathered together an army
for Oswin's destruction.

Oswin likewise collected some forces, but so
inconsiderable that it would appear as though he
came rather to deprecate war than to make it.
He met Oswy at Wilfar's Hill, about ten miles
from Catterick, near the pleasant Swale, in whose
clear waters St. Paulinus had baptized the Saxon
peasantry of Yorkshire. Seeing the inferiority of
his forces, and yet their desperate resolution to sell
their lives for their king, and considering that it
was personal affection to himself which animated
them, Oswin paused. The bloody slaughter which
must ensue overshadowed his gentle spirit, and he
could not endure to be the cause of death to so
many, whether of his own little chivalrous band,

KING AND MARTYR 253

or of his foes.1 He therefore determined to with-
draw from the field and disband his troops. If it
was his crown which Oswy wanted, it was not
much for him to resign it, and live in obscurity ;
but if it were his life as well as his crown, why
then, if we live, we live unto the Lord, and if we
die, we die unto the Lord, therefore he could part
with that also. He called his little army together
and spoke to some such effect as this ; I say, to
some such effect, for the monk's narrative seems a
little more florid than the original legend probably
was. " I thank you, my most faithful captains and
strenuous soldiers, for your good-will towards me ;
but far be it from me that for my sake only such
danger should be run by you who from a poor
exile made me 2 into a king. I prefer, therefore, to
return into exile, nay, even to die, than to hazard
so many lives. Let me in peace, and not in war,
embrace the divine sentence against myself, con-
veyed to me by the mouth of the blessed Bishop
Aidan, that through martyrdom must I enter the
joys of heaven. I refuse not to end my earthly
life in such order and time as Christ shall will."
The soldiers, seeing how earnestly their king
coveted to depart and be with Christ, were
wounded "with a deep wound in their hearts,"
and all with one accord went down on their
knees before him, and wept, and prayed to fight

1 Though Bede's narrative quite admits of this turn, yet it treats
Oswin's flight rather as an act of prudence than of heroic virtue. Not
so the monk of Tynemouth. Of course both may be, and most pro-
bably are, true together.

2 The monk of Tynemouth, therefore, refers Oswin's exaltation to the
election of the nobles, not to Oswy's voluntary choice.

254 ST. OSWIN,

for him. " Haply we may conquer ; we may break
even through yon wedges of men; but if not, let
us die, and not pass into a proverb as deserters of
our king." But Oswin was unmoved. He saw
that it was himself and not his people who were
aimed at, that Oswy would not ravage the country
or oppress the people even for his own sake, and
that by forbidding the battle he was not abandon-
ing his subjects to the horrors of a cruel invasion.
He explained this to his men, and concluded by
saying, "I pant after martyrdom and the joys of
the heavenly kingdom."

When he had said this, he prayed solemnly to
God and said, "Father of mercy and God of all
consolation, whose Son is the Angel of great
counsels, whose Spirit is the Comforter in diffi-
culties, grant me in this strait to choose the better
way. For if I fight, I shall be guilty before Thee
of the shedding of blood. If I fly, I shall be
counted to have degenerated from the nobility of
my parents, and to have fallen short of my station.
Flying, I displease men : fighting, I am displeasing
unto Thee." And so, says the monk, he fixed his
anchor in God.

Oswin, disbanding his forces, chose one com-
panion of his exile, a faithful adherent named
Tondhere, the son of Tylsius. With him he passed
that evening from Wilfar's Hill to the village of
Gilling, on the west border of Yorkshire, which lies
in a green and blithe valley of considerable depth,
not far from Richmond. The estate, or to use a
later word, the fief of Gilling, he had lately con-
ferred upon Count Hunwald, as one of his most

KING AND MARTYR 255

attached courtiers ; and that he should turn out a
traitor proves in what a state of insecurity Oswin
must have passed his days, and how completely
the meshes of his enemy encompassed him round
about. So true it is, as with their Head, so with
the saints, their foes are they of their own house-
hold, and their wounds are received in the house of
their friends. It is not probable that Oswin ex-
pected to escape death, though it was his duty to
shun it ; for all that he said showed him to be com-
pletely and calmly possessed by the presentiment of
its nearness. Hunwald received him into his house,
and promised to conceal him.

Meanwhile Oswy was not altogether satisfied.
True it was that he was master of the kingdom of
the Deiri without opposition : but was his usurpa-
tion likely to be stable while one so ardently beloved
as Oswin was lying somewhere in exile ? And was
not his own personal hatred to be satisfied ? In
truth he had been balked of half his prey. He
therefore commissioned Count Ethelwin, one of his
officers, to take a troop of soldiers, seek for the
fugitive king, and kill him. The search was not
long ; for the detestable Hunwald betrayed his
guest. Ethelwin surrounded the castle with his
soldiers in the silence of the night, while Hunwald
was paying the homage of his lips to his kind master.
Ethelwin entered and notified to Oswin the fatal
sentence of the conqueror. At first the king was
disturbed with the suddenness of the event and the
additional distress of having been betrayed by one
under such great obligations to him. But, recover-
ing his calmness and his dignity, he fortified his

256 ST. OSWIN,

breast and tongue with the sign of the cross, and
said to Ethelwin, "The sentence of your king
depends upon the permission of my King." He
entreated the Count to spare the life of his faithful
servant, Tondhere ; but he refused to survive his
master. Both were slain together, and buried
together, at Gilling, on the aoth day of August,
651 A.D.

So far as appears, St. Oswin remained unmarried.
We may suppose that one who all his life long so
earnestly coveted the best gifts was not likely to be
without a holy ambition for the coronal of virgins,
and that in virginity, that great fountain of alms-
giving, and preceptress of humility, his holy soul
would much delight. There are some of the saints
whose lives seem to have been moulded by a
heavenly vision or some supernatural intimation of
their own destiny. This touch of the invisible
world appears to draw them apart, to give a direc-
tion to their lives, a tone to their character, to be
to them as it were a kind of individual sacrament
vouchsafed to them. They seem to sit all their
days beneath the shadow of this sacred revelation,
and to sanctify themselves in its secret presence.
Perhaps, too, it will be generally found that the
saints whose lives have this peculiar feature most
strongly (for in its measure may it not be the por-
tion of all great saints ?) have been more especially
distinguished by humility and a mortified spirit.
Thus with St. Oswin the heavenly intimation given
him through St. Aidan that he should suffer martyr-
dom would doubtless haunt him perpetually, and
be to a good man a constant source of self-restraint

KING AND MARTYR 257

and gentleness. For to be entrusted with a secret
of the Lord seems to bring the Divine Presence
nearer, and the abiding sense of that Presence
would be sure to humble a man exceedingly. The
secret life of sovereigns has generally been very
different from the show of court-days ; and as with
St. Oswin, so in many signal cases has it pleased
God by His grace to make it a long hidden martyr-
dom of pain and care, and suffering for the faith,
and austere self-discipline. Blessed are the mon-
archs whose brows are girt with the crown of
thorns, though we see but the diadem of gold !

Soon after Oswin's death (the monk of Tyne-
mouth would have it immediately afterwards), his
remains were translated from Gilling to Tynemouth,
where St. Oswald had founded a monastery. It
was deposited in a chapel built beneath a rock on
the north side of the river, an oratory of our
Blessed Lady ; and for some time his place of
sepulture was reverently visited. But the Gospel
suffered continual eclipses, partial or total, on the
sea-coasts of Northumberland from the frequent
landings and invasions of the heathen Danes ; so
that in course of time the exact place of St. Oswin's
burial was forgotten, and so remained until the
eleventh century. There was at that time at Tyne-
mouth a man of the name of Edmund, a very
pious person who led a monkish life and wore a
monkish dress, and continued day and night in
devotion to Christ and the holy Mother. He did
I not belong to any monastery, professed no rule,
! and was not bound by any regular discipline. But
though living in the world he was as a monk among

VOL. IV. R

258 ST. OSWIN,

its crowds. It happened that after a vigil he fell
asleep in the Church, and as he slept there appeared
to him in a dream a person of a vivid colour and
vigorous frame, tall of stature, and with a heavenly
effulgence round him. Edmund gazed earnestly
upon him, but, awe-struck by the majesty of his
angelic countenance, did not venture to inquire
who he was. At length the man called : " Brother
Edmund! Brother Edmund!" Then Edmund
with all reverence replied, " Who art thou, my
lord ? " "I am King Oswin, slain by Oswy, through
the detestable treachery of Count Hunwald, and I
lie in this Church unknown to all. Rise, therefore,
and go to the Bishop Egelwin, and tell him to seek
my body beneath the pavement of this oratory, and
let him raise it up and re-inter it more becomingly
in this same chapel." In consequence of this
the body was sought, and found. Judith, the
daughter of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, and wife of
Tosti, Earl of Northumberland, washed the martyrs'
hair, still stained by blood ; but except the hair
and bones all had gone to dust. The feast of St. \
Oswin is kept on the 2oth of August, it being the
day of the solemn translation of his relics from the
old oratory into the new Church of Our Lady at
Tynemouth.

It would appear that Oswy afterwards repented
of his crime, which William of Malmesbury imputes
to malicious mischief-makers inciting him against St.
Oswin. However, Eanfleda his queen, St. Edwin's
daughter, got permission from her husband to found
a monastery at Gilling wherein prayers should be
said for the repose of Oswin's soul, and for the

KING AND MARTYR 259

pardon of the guilty Oswy. It was one of the
many holy houses which fell before the ruthless
Danes.

Let us quote once more the words of the devoted
monk of Tynemouth.1 "The martyr, in his glory,
still invites the wealthy by his example to the tran-
quil joys of Paradise. For he did not attempt the
way of sanctity, compelled by the urgency of
poverty, or, as men are wont, by the feebleness of
ailing health ; but, freely drawn by the sole con-
templation of the Creator, he lived in the purple of
a king, as David did, poor and sorrowing ; poor in
spirit even while he abounded in the wealth and
delicacy of a monarch ; sorrowful in spirit, because
he trusted not his heart to his abundance of good
things. For the more he abounded, the less desire
had he for his abundance. In the midst of a noisy
court, which was ever too much for him, he fled
far off, and remained in the solitude of his mind,
even when his subjects thronged about him.
Abroad he carried himself in a kingly way, but
inwardly he was a king over his own affections,
courageously exercising himself in the love of
humility and poverty. He girded himself up to
all spiritual exercises, but seemed to pour out his
whole being in the corporal works of mercy. His
plenty was the needy man's supply : the super-
fluities of the rich he deemed the necessaries of the

1 This monk was originally of St. Albans, then prior of Wymunde-
liam ; he came to Tynemouth to give himself more completely up to
the austerities of penance. What is said in the text of ailing health is
i touching, when we know that the writer suffered greatly at Tyne-
mouth, and was restored to health through the intercession of his
patron, St. Oswin.

26o ST. OSWIN,

poor. He thought a king owed most to those who
could do least for him, and that justice was meant
specially for the oppressed. And so was the holy
King Oswin, because his people deserved not such
a lord, slain by the sword of envy, and translated to
the companies of the blessed angels."

Very many graces are said to have been granted
at the tomb of the royal martyr, and through his
potent intercession. A life of St. Oswin would be
scarcely complete, if some mention was not made
of these. Perhaps it would be a simpler and more
religious temper which would regard such things as
miracles really accorded to the pleading and merits
of the blessed saint ; there is, through God's mercy,
a growing inclination among us to take these things
reverentially, when there seems tolerable historical
evidence in favour of them ; and at any rate there
is among many more a growing disinclination to
speak lightly of such matters, and put them rudely
aside. There is a pious suspense of mind which is
surely an acceptable temper, more acceptable, it
may be, than that mere hunger for the marvellous,
which is very far indeed from calm discerning
faith. However, we do not pretend to relate the
following miracles either as sacred facts or as mere
devotional fictions ; they have an interest of an-
other sort, which does not affect their possibly
more solemn character, and for this lower interest
we shall now put them before the reader.

If it evidence a poorer temper of mind and an age
of cold hearts and incredulous intellects, yet surely
it is allowable and edifying to dwell on the human-
ising influences which the beliefs and devotions of

KING AND MARTYR 261

the Catholic Church have had on rough ages and
among turbulent nations. It is not the less God's
mercy, though there may be a more direct and
awful manifestation of Him in such things. For
many a long year of fear and vexatious misrule the
" Peace of the martyr " was a pleasant and a safe
shade under which the dwellers on the bleak sea-
shore of Durham and Northumberland were glad to
cluster like an affrighted sheep-flock ; a shadow cast
by St. Oswin's memory from our Lady's House at
Tynemouth far to the Cleveland Hills, and north-
ward to the Tweed. The charities of life took root
there with an assurance which the troubled times
could not warrant : unnamed, unnumbered acts of
peace, goodness, fidelity, restitution, self-restraint,
were (so to speak) solemnised for the comfort of
men through the " Peace of the martyr." It was
the Church making the world endurable — her work
in all ages, the way thereof, with fruitful diversity,
different in every age.

We proceed then to relate three miracles, which
particularly exemplify this. Let it be remembered
that by miracles men are not only helped, but they
are also taught. When, therefore, to the readers of
one age the miracles of another long past away
appear so grotesque as to provoke amusement,
i their seeming eccentricity is no ground for reject-
ling them. If men are to be taught, the teaching
will be shaped for them, adapted to their way of
looking at things, corresponding to their habits of
thought, and as it were echoing the actual life
and manners of the times. Supposing a miracle
; wrought for the conversion of a barbarous people,

262 ST. OSWIN,

will it not almost certainly have a barbarous aspect,
and be what a philosophical age would deem a
gross display of supernatural power or goodness ?
A barbarian doubting of the Gospel would, as in
numberless recorded instances, put its truth to a
gross, carnal, rude test — something the satisfaction
of which would make a rude man believe ; -the
missionary is inspired to accept the test, to venture
his preaching upon it, works the required miracle,
asked not in wantonness, but as a child would seek
unwonted assurance for some unwonted promise ;
and is the miracle so wrought, so fitting for its pur-
pose, thus actually bringing men into the Church
of God, a suitable or decorous theme for elegant
derision or playfully contemptuous narrative among
the children of those barbarian ancestors whose
simple-mannered ignorance it overruled to such a
mighty and blissful end ? Whether then the follow-
ing miracles were wrought or not, they were believed;
and such a faith would in rude times exert a most
holy influence over manners and conduct, and in
some sense vicariously discharge the sweetest office
of law, while law was not yet come of age to dis-
charge its own duties, namely, that of securing the
happiness of private life, fostering and guaranteeing
all the rights, jurisdictions, privileges, and subordi-
nations of conjugal, filial, and fraternal piety, while
it also inspired, ennobled, and ensured all the gentle
hallowing restraints of what is called with an
expressive homeliness, — good neighbourhood.

There is such a Christian virtue as hospitality,
and the self-denial it for the most part involves may
be that which chiefly gives it its Christian character,

KING AND MARTYR 263

It was a virtue much needed in unsettled times, and
much practised. When people saw graces given
to strangers at the tombs of their own local saints,
they received a strong admonition to hospitality,
most vividly conveyed. The following is a speci-
men of many such. There was a man of Norwich
who had a profound reverence for the holy places
where our Lord had trodden, spoken, and acted
when on earth. Three times did his pious thirst
after those far-off fountains of prayer and tears
drive him over land and sea to Jerusalem, long,
arduous, perilous as the pilgrimage was. Return-
ing home after his third visit, he determined to go
northward to pay his devotions at St. Andrews
in Scotland, a place then regarded with singular
veneration. He had, from long usage, become so
accustomed to foreign diet that the rough cheer of
English plenty threw him into a violent illness ;
this was accompanied every fifteen or sixteen days
with excruciating spasms, and to gain relief from
these seems to have been one, though not the sole
object of this fresh pilgrimage to St. Andrews. On
his journey he passed through Newcastle-on-Tyne.
In that town dwelt a man named Daniel, whose
wife was a very godly woman, and specially devoted
to the entertainment and care of strangers ; for
which purpose she had built a house apart from
her own dwelling. Here she received the Norwich
pilgrim, and ministered to him with her own hands ;
and here he was seized with his fit of spasms. It
wounded the heart of his hostess to hear how the
poor pilgrim filled the house with his pitiful cries.
She consoled him to the best of her power, and

264 ST. OSWIN,

furnished him with such comforts as she could,
till after long agony his exhausted body found a
little respite in sleep. In his sleep he dreamed a
dream, or saw a vision. A man of a reverend
countenance appeared to him, and asked him if he
wished to recover from his sickness. " Yes, sir,"
he replied, " I covet it ardently." " Rise then in
the morning," was the answer, " and hasten to St.
Oswin, the king and martyr, so that on Tuesday
next you may be present at the feast of the Inven-
tion of his relics, and by his merits there obtain the
health you desire." The sick man inquired, " But
who are you, sir, who promise me such good
things ? " " What have you to do with me ? Go in
faith and be healed." " Yet, sir," persisted the pil-
grim, " I beseech you do not be angry, but tell me
who you are, that by the authority of your name
I may be assured of the solidity of your promise."
Then the figure answered, " I am Aidan, formerly
the Bishop of St. Oswin, and that you may believe,
I will now by my touch cure the pain in your head,
leaving you to be healed of your inward spasms by
St. Oswin." So saying, he pressed upon the nose
of the sleeping man, and immediately a copious
flow of blood took place, which relieved his head.
There was a maid watching by his bedside, and
when she saw her patient covered with blood she
called her mistress, who at the request of the sick
man sent for the priest of the parish. To him he
related the vision, saying that Oswin he had heard
a little of, but he did not so much as know the
name of Aidan. As he was unable to walk, one of
the neighbours kindly offered to take him to Tyne-

KING AND MARTYR 265

mouth in his boat. They arrived there while the
monks were in chapter, and laid the sufferer at the
martyr's tomb, where he was presently healed of his
disease.

If there ever was an age when Church holydays
were multiplied to idleness and grew to be a burden
to the land, there certainly have been ages when
they were most kindly interruptions of the op-
pressive toils of poverty, most merciful restraints on
landlords, and gentle mitigations of the hardships
of the over-tasked peasantry. Now let us see how
it was believed that St. Oswin interfered to vindicate
for the poor the safe rest of his own festivals. Once,
when all agricultural labour was suspended, a greedy
clerk would not lose the day, but housed his grain.
He was worldly wise ; people noticed him, but in
those days they would not envy such an one.
Shortly,!by some accident, his barn took fire, and all
his grain was burned. Accident translated into the
language of those times was St. Oswin's vengeance.
Again, when Archarius was prior of Tynemouth,
there dwelt there for a little while a most expert
goldsmith of the name of Baldwin, whom the prior
took into his service to regild the martyr's shrine.
St. Oswin's day came round ; there was feasting
and praying and holyday at Tynemouth. Baldwin
among the rest went to the feasting, and being an
unsuspicious man, besides that it was St. Oswin's
day, he did not close his shop-door so carefully as
he might have done. His shop was close to the
church, and among the crowds a thief managed to
approach it unperceived, and carry away all the
valuables he could lay hands on. This was a sacri-

266 ST. OSWIN,

legious breach of the " Martyr's Peace." The public
road was open to the thief ; he ran till he came to
the limits of the " Peace/' the border of the sanc-
tuary, and there, though there was an open
unhindered way before him, he could not move a
step, but was miraculously rooted to the ground.
Yet, though he could not advance, he could go here
and there within the Peace as he pleased ; but it
was invisibly fenced, and he could not pass the
bounds. However, he betook himself to a little inn
within the purlieus, where, by his startled face, the
levity of his deportment, and the incoherency of
his speech, something was suspected, and he was
arrested. Meanwhile Baldwin had become ac-
quainted with his loss, and with a heavy heart
was complaining at the martyr's tomb, when the
news came that the thief had been found, and his
goods restored. The criminal was immediately
hanged, and the people feared, and glorified God
for the wonderful protection of St. Oswin's Peace.

How beautiful it is amid the dazzling brightness,
the wassail and the tournament, of the Middle Ages
to catch a glimpse of some details of the unnamed
poor ! How touching when those details tell how
the poor ran to their Church as their natural refuge,
and how the Church succoured, comforted, avenged
the wrongs of the slighted cottager, the helpless
woman, the toil-worn serf ! Here is a legend
of St. Oswin's shrine, which is quite a Christian
poem, very beautiful indeed. In the reign of
William Rufus there was war on the Scottish
border. William came to Newcastle-on-Tyne in-
flamed with ungovernable passion. The Scots had

KING AND MARTYR 267

wasted the country all round, and were then
butchering old and young, priest and layman, in
the poor city of Durham. William advanced, and
they fled before him, for they heard of his burning
rage. Meanwhile there came fifty of William's ships
to the mouth of the Tyne, laden with corn from the
West Angles, to supply the king during the Scottish
war. The mariners were a rude, ungodly company,
and as the king had left Newcastle, and there was
no one to restrain them, they plundered the houses
round about, and did not fear to violate St. Oswin's
Peace. There was an old woman, so weak and old
that she was obliged to support herself on a staff ;
each year she consumed wholly, with great pains
and weary diligence, in weaving a poor little web ;
it was her annual hope and harvest, and the year's
web was now lying finished by her. Whether she
was walking on the shore carrying her web to sell
it, or whether she was in her cottage, does not
appear from the narrative ; but at any rate she was
attacked by one of the sailors, but firmly as she
grasped her precious web he tore it out of her
hands. She wept and sobbed, and besought him
by her patron, St. Oswin, that he would give her
back the web ; the sailor scoffed both at St. Oswin
and herself. The indignant old woman, with much
effort, hobbled up to the monastery, and went to
the martyr's tomb, and begged him to redress her
wrongs. " God," says the monk, " Who despiseth
not the tears of widows, heard the old woman's
tearful sobs through the merits of the holy martyr/'
But she left the tomb dejected : no answer came to
her prayers ; night passed, and the web was not

268 ST. OSWIN,

returned, and morning brought a fair wind. She
saw the white sails proudly set, and the fleet sweep
down the sea towards Lindisfarne : her web was
there, her one web, her year's livelihood; St. Oswin
had not heard her prayer. The ships at length
disappeared ; they made a prosperous voyage to
Coquet Island, a little to the north of Tynemouth.
It is a rocky place, but the sea was calm, and the
sailors careless. Now, without a wind or a cloud
the sea began to grow ; and billows rose and rose,
and the heavy swell thundered on the Coquet rocks.
It seemed like a miracle, so tranquil, so beautiful
the day. Still the sea rose, the ships were entangled
among the shoals, they dashed one against another,
were broken and sunk, and all hands perished. The
north wind came, and the wrecks and corpses were
all drifted ashore near Tynemouth. Not a thing
stolen but what the sea gave it up again faithfully,
for it was doing a divine work. The cottagers had
hid themselves in the woods and caves, fearing the
return of the sailors. They had returned in another
guise than they expected, a piteous return. Then
the people left their coverts and came down to the
shore, and each scrupulously confined himself to
taking up what had belonged to him. Harmless on
the wet sand lay a corpse, with the old woman's
web in its hand ; her lameness made her late, and
she was among the last to recover her property.
" O cruelest of men," she said to the dead sailor,
"yesterday I asked you and you would not hear
me ; I asked my lord and patron, and he has heard
me. Now you give up unwittingly the web you
stole most wittingly ; now you pay in death the

KING AND MARTYR 269

penalty you deserved to pay when alive, because
you despised the saint in me." The monk draws a
conclusion to this effect : let no one think the saints
ever turn their ears from the desire of the poor ;
they only delay in order to answer their prayers
more wonderfully. Such was a monkish doctrine
in the Middle Ages ; what wonder the poor so loved
the monks ?

THE POOR IN THE MIDDLE AGES

It is the Past ye worship ; ye do well, —

If the sweet dues of reverence which ye pay

Be equably disposed, nor lean one way

For lack of balance in your thoughts. To spell

The Past in its significance, to ponder,

In the embrace of judgment, fear and love

In the disguises of those days, — should move

More than the weak idolatry of wonder,

Or beauty-stricken eye : they should grow part

Of the outgoings of your daily heart ; —

And be not scared by show of kings and knights,

As if those times were in such gauds embraced ;

Remember that the People claim a Past,

And that the Poor of Christ have lineal rights.

II.

They, in whose hearts those mighty times have wrought

Most deeply, have upon their aspect gazed

As on an eclipse, with their eye upraised

Through the subduing mean of sombre thought,

And then it is a very fearful vision

To see the uncounted Poor, who strayed forlorn

As an untended herd, with natures worn

To heartlessness through every-day collision

270 ST. OSWIN,

With arrogance and wrong. Proud knights, fair dames,

And all the pomp of old chivalric names,

Fade, like a mimic show, from off the past ;

And to the Christian's eye ungathered flowers

Of suffering meekly borne, in lowliest bowers,

With solemn life fill in the populous waste.

Such are the thoughts which a Catholic may well
have when he is humbly venturing to interpret the
ways of God, pleading with people to have reverent
thoughts about things which God may have used,
and so are sacred evermore, and trying to win their
love to all the benign and humanising functions of
the Church, even to such old realities and local
blessings as St. Oswin's Peace.

THE LIFE OF
ST. E B B A

VIRGIN AND ABBESS, A.D. 683

THE royal house of Northumbria was fertile in
saints. St. Edwin and St. Oswald, St. Oswin and
St. Ebba, and then that saint, dedicated in her
cradle, the blessed Abbess Elfleda, were all kinsfolk.
It would be interesting, on an extensive view of the
history of the saints, to see how in one age one
particular class of society, and in another age a
different class, furnished the Church with saints.
At one time royalty seemed the chief fountain, as
prolific as the episcopate itself ; at another time
doctors were given to the Church, not luminary
after luminary, but many together as if one called
out the other : another while the saints are found
mostly to have sanctified themselves in the pastoral
and parochial labours;1 then again they are hermits

1 This has been especially the case in the later ages of the Church,
and is, perhaps, an index of not a very favourable or healthy state of
things. Most of those for whose beatification processes are now
forming are parish or missionary priests : it is long since the Church
canonised a doctor, so that the Jesuits may well have wished to have
their gentle-spirited Bellarmine among the publicly honoured saints, if
so it might have been. The title of Doctor has been loudly claimed

272 ST. EBBA,

in the woods and caves, or such as have climbed
the heights of heroic penance in the religious
orders, or such as have divined the wants of their
times and been themselves the founders of new
communities. Then again, at another season by
some mysterious impulse the Church lengthens her
cords and pushes out her boundaries here and
there, and a band of missionaries swell the noble
army of martyrs or of confessors. Now, without
putting out of sight the blessed Paraclete who
dwells within the Church and moves her as He
listeth and causes that all her motions are
mysterious and imperfectly comprehended, we
may find some reasons why this should be so ;
and at any rate draw one lesson from that striking
feature of the sacred history of the Saxon Hep-
tarchy ; for the numerous royal saints which
adorn it do certainly give it a very marked and
special character. 'The lesson is this, that high
station and worldly grandeur only or chiefly pro-
duce saints, when such station and grandeur do
of themselves involve hardship, suffering, and inse-
curity ; so that it must be suffering, either imposed
by God, or suffering self-imposed, whereby men
are sanctified. And it is important to note this

for St. Alphonso Liguori ; surely most unreasonably. Expertness and
erudition in the authorities of Moral Theology can hardly establish
that claim for any one ; and whoever reads St. Alphonso's polemical
and dogmatical treatises will see that the title of Doctor can hardly
belong to that blessed saint, whose seraphic heart was best outpoured
upon the Passion, the Nativity, and Sacramental Presence of our Lord,
and the honour of His ever-virgin Mother. It is said the Congrega-
tion have refused the claim which the Redemptorists set up for their
holy founder.

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 273

whenever we can ; because, though one would
think it written as with a sunbeam on the pages
of the New Testament, an age of luxury, domestic
peace and social comforts would fain denounce
the bare enunciation of it as a heresy which —
strange perversion of words ! — brings to nought
the doctrine of the Cross.

As in primitive times the bishop's throne did but
raise a man more into the view of his persecutors,
so in the seventh century in England to be a prince
or a princess was only to be more liable to vicissi-
tude and a disturbed life than the humbler ranks
of people were. Exile, deposition, and murder
were the foremost retinue of a king, and, of course,
his wife and children, his brothers and sisters,
shared his changeful fortunes. But of all the
members of the royal households the princesses
seem to have been in the most unfavourable
position. Not only was the weakness of their sex
to confront the rough manners of the times, but
they were looked upon for the most part as means
of consolidating and extending power by being
given in marriage to other princes, pagan it might
be, or ruthless and profligate even though Christian
by name. Thus, if a royal maiden wished to
dedicate herself to holy virginity, she became at
once, as the world counts things, useless to her
family ; a means of influence was wasted ; her
father or her brother had an alliance the less, if
she was allowed to take the veil. And yet it was
under these very circumstances that the Saxon
abbesses, the wise spiritual mothers of our first
monasteries, were mostly of royal blood ; and in the
VOL. IV, S

274 ST. EBBA,

sackcloth of penance, not with the patronage of
power, our queens were nursing mothers to the
Saxon Church. One of these holy abbesses was
St. Ebba, of Coldingham, the scanty notices of
whose hidden life we are now to put together.

St. Ebba was the daughter of King Ethelfrid, and
the sister of St. Oswald and half-sister of King Oswy.
Of her early life nothing whatever is known except
that from her infancy she was very religiously dis-
posed, and averse to the pomps and pleasures which
her rank opened out to her. Doubtless the example
of her brother, St. Oswald, and the conversation of
St. Aidan, during that holy prelate's visits to the
court, went far to aid the work of divine grace
within her soul. But the ruling desire of her heart
was to consecrate herself as a virgin to the perpetual
service of her heavenly Spouse. This was, says the
author of her life,1 in an age when persons of high
birth esteemed their nobility to consist principally
in the humble service of our Lord, and those were
most highly exalted, who with greatest submission
undertook the cross of Christ. At that time in-
numerable congregations both of men and women
were sprinkled through the whole island, severally
embracing the spiritual warfare of our Lord. Yea,
sometimes in the same place persons of both sexes,
men and virgins, under the government of one
spiritual father, or one spiritual mother, armed with
the sword of the Spirit, did exercise the combats of
chastity against the powers of darkness, enemies
thereto. The institute and practice of these was

1 Translated in Cressy, xviii. 14,

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 275

imitated by St. Ebba, who for the love she bore to
the Son of God even in the flower of her youth
contemned whatsoever was great or desirable in the
world. She preferred the service of our Lord
before secular nobility, spiritual poverty before
riches, and voluntary abjection before honours.
For though descended from royal parents, yet by
faith she overcame the world ; by virtues, beauty ;
and by spiritual graces, her own sex.

When it has pleased God to inspire any of His
servants to attempt some great thing for His sake,
His Providence for the most part so orders it that
some temptation shall intervene to try the strength
and heartiness of the resolution. If the temptation
is overcome, so much the higher place does His
servant take ; and if the resolution gives way in the
trial, there is often mercy in it even then : for men,
especially when entering on a course of penance,
will attempt things which in them it is immodest
to attempt, and betrays an inadequate sense of their
former demerits ; and it seems better to fail in
carrying out a holy resolution than to carry it out
and then apostatise from the state of life to which
it has solemnly committed us. The most marked
temptations of the saints have generally been con-
temporary with the signal acts of virtue which after-
wards rendered their memory dear to the Church.
Thus the youthful Ebba was not allowed quietly to
satisfy her thirst for holy virginity ; the dazzling
offers of the world must come and try her strength ;
the snare of seeking what is nowadays called a
more extended sphere of usefulness must tempt
the simplicity of her self-renunciation. Alas ! what

276 ST. EBBA,

a miserable, dwarfish standard of religious practice
do these smooth words bring about among us now !
The highest notion we are allowed to have of rank,
wealth, and mental powers is that they should be
exercised to the full as means of influence for good
ends. The world understands this and does not
quarrel with the doctrine. But where is there
about this teaching that foolishness in men's eyes
which must ever mark the science of the cross ?
Self-abjection surely is the highest of all oblations :
to forget the world or to hate it is better far than
to work for it. One is the taste of ordinary Chris-
tians : the other the object of the saints. We read
of St. Arsenius that when he became a monk he
studied to the utmost to conceal his immense
learning, and was ever humbling himself to seek
spiritual advice from the most simple of his brethren.
Rodriguez remarks of St. Jerome, that though of
noble birth there is not so much as a covert allusion
to it in all his voluminous writings, full as they are
of autobiography : and the flights of the holy Abbot
Pinuphius1 from what would be considered his
sphere of duty, however improper objects for our
imitation, exhibit a view widely different from that
whose tyrannous reign would now cramp the
energies of good men and keep them in an in-
effective mediocrity from which the world has
nothing to fear.

The temptation of St. Ebba came from the offer
of a splendid marriage. Her suitor was no less a
person than Edan, the king of the Scotch. Of course

1 Cassian, Inst. iv, 30,

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 277

the inducements were many ; the strengthening of
her family, the almost unlimited means of doing
good and serving the Church, the religious advan-
tages of being among the Scotch at that time, whose
fervent zeal and purity were famous, and to whose
usages her brother Oswy was almost bigotedly
attached. The vulgar allurements of power and
royalty would not touch her ; and for the other
motives the simplicity of a self-renouncing spirit
was too much. She rejected her royal suitor, and
from the hands of St. Finan, Bishop of Lindisfarne,
she received the veil in token that she was now
married once for all to a heavenly Spouse. In
proportion as a Christian receives any gift from the
Lord, does he feel a growing desire to impart it
unto others : this it is which breeds that love of
souls, whose crowning point is martyrdom. We
read that Ebba was not content to dedicate her
own virginity to Christ, but that she longed to draw
with her a band of virgins into the same divine
espousals. Her brother Oswy furthered her pro-
ject, and with his assistance she founded a nunnery
in Durham, on the river Darwent, at a place still
called Ebchester.

As the royal house of Northumbria may almost
be called a family of saints, and as it was by Oswy's
aid that Ebba founded her first nunnery, it may be
allowed us to take this opportunity of saying some-
thing of that king. Considering his deep repent-
ance, and the signal services he afterwards rendered
to the Church, it is painful to keep his reign in the
background, and leave his memory under the dark
shadow which the death of St. Oswin casts upon it.

278 ST. EBBA,

It would indeed be contrary to the charity of the
saints that their lives should bring up Oswy's atro-
cious crime, and put out of view his penitence,
and the virtues of his after-life. It is natural we
should wish to adorn, so far as truth will allow, the
chronicles of our Saxon kings, when, besides many
saints, seven kings before Ceolwulph laid down the
purple for the coarse garment of the ascetic monk.
It is not an uncommon thing both in history and
in life to see a man working towards a much-coveted
end by every means, right or wrong ; and when the
station is gained, the ambition satisfied, and the
hunger of sin stayed, the man's nature seems to
right itself, as though the disturbing force were
removed ; or perhaps the very responsibility of his
office, as has been the case with some bishops, acts
as a sort of moral stimulus, and makes him dis-
charge with nobility the duties of a station which
he arrived at through ignoble ways and a mean
ambition. But this sort of silent growing change
is something very different from Christian peni-
tence : it wants its roughness, its completeness, its
self-revenge ; and the early Saxon character would
either have gone on from bad to worse, or have
changed for the better in a more real and Christian
way. So it was with Oswy, when he was roused
from that dream of ambition or of angry passions
which brought about the murder of St. Oswin. He
seems to have become a real, hearty penitent, and
to have devoted himself in every way to serve the
holy Church. It was chiefly through Oswy that
the Middle Angles were converted to the faith ; for
when the young King Peada came to sue for the

VIRGIN AND ABBESS

hand of Alcfleda, his natural daughter, Oswy re-
fused to give her to a pagan, and persuaded Peada
to be instructed in the faith ; which he cordially
embraced, being urged in addition by the friend-
ship of Oswy's son, Alfrid, who had married his
sister, Kyneburga, herself a saint. Neither was
Oswy less successful in re-establishing the Gospel
among the East Saxons, who had exiled their
bishop Mellitus. Sigebert, their king, was closely
united to Oswy in the bonds of friendship, and
was accustomed to pay frequent visits at the Nor-
thumbrian Court. Oswy lost no opportunity of
urging upon him the excellency of the Christian
faith. He unveiled the stupid errors of idolatry,
and spoke of the spiritual majesty of God and the
terrors of His future Judgment, until Sigebert's
heart was touched, and he received the sacrament
of baptism from the hands of St. Finan, and from
Oswy the holy Bishop Cedd, who accompanied
him into his kingdom. Oswy's piety was again
displayed on the occasion of his victory over King
Penda. He consecrated his infant daughter, Elfleda,
to the perpetual service of Christ ; he also set aside
twelve small estates where twelve bands of monks
were always to reside, and pray for the peace of
the nation. The king, moreover, took a warm
interest in ecclesiastical matters, and was devotedly
attached to the Scotch usages, as we learn from
the part he took in the disputes between St. Colman
and St. Wilfrid : though he was in the end com-
pletely convinced by St. Wilfrid's reasons, and gave
up his former opinion in a way which reflected the
greatest credit upon himself. He seems to have

280 ST. EBBA,

been a man so completely in earnest, that he
entered into the love and reverence for the Holy
See, with a zeal equal to that which he had before
shown towards the Scotch usages in which he had
been brought up. He sent Wighard to Rome to
be consecrated archbishop by Pope Vitalian ; and,
Wighard dying before his consecration, the holy
father addressed a letter to the king : and finally,
when Oswy died, he was preparing to quit his
kingdom and go on pilgrimage to Rome, and end
his days among the holy places, with St. Wilfrid for
his companion. He was buried in Whitby Abbey,
and the opinion which men had of his sanctity
is sufficiently shown by his being mentioned in
the English Martyrology on the i5th of February.
From this digression, which seemed but an act
of equity to her half-brother, we may now return
to St. Ebba. How long she stayed at the newly
founded nunnery of Ebchester we do not know.
It appears, however, that for some reason or other
she left it, and founded the famous double monas-
tery of Coldingham, in Berwickshire, where two
distinct communities, of men and women, lived
under her single government as abbess. It was in
this monastery that Ebba received St. Etheldreda
of Ely, and taught her the monastic discipline ;
and the very fact that such an eminent saint was
formed under her spiritual guidance gives us some
idea of the wisdom, discretion, and holiness of Ebba
herself. Indeed, we are told that the whole king-
dom regarded Ebba as a spiritual mother, and that
the reputation of her sanctity was spread far and
wide. And one fact is recorded which of itself

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 281

speaks volumes. It is well known that St. Cuthbert
carried the jealousy of intercourse with women,
characteristic of all the saints, to a very extra-
ordinary pitch. It appeared as though he could
say with the patriarch Job, " I made a covenant
with mine eyes ; why then should I think upon a
maid ? " And for many ages after females were
not admitted into his sanctuary. Yet such was the
reputation of St. Ebba's sanctity, and the spiritual
wisdom of her discourse, that St. Bede informs us
that when she sent messengers to the man of God,
desiring him to come to her monastery, he went
and stopped several days, in conversation with her,
going out of the gates at nightfall and spending the
hours of darkness in prayer, either up to his neck
in the water, or in the chilly air.

It would seem that in the case of Coldingham
the plan of a double community did not at first
succeed. It is obvious that St. Ebba would be
compelled to entrust a great portion of the govern-
ment to inferior officers who were males. Anyhow
the monastery, even under her rule, fell into such
a state of lukewarm remissness as to provoke the
Divine vengeance. We cannot for a moment sup-
pose that the holy mother either caused or coun-
tenanced such a state of things, but somehow or
other it was maintained in spite of her ; indeed
they managed to keep her in ignorance of it.
Meanwhile it pleased God to reveal to the austere
and devout St. Adamnan the future destruction of
the whole monastery by fire ; yet even this awful
judgment carried with it an attestation to the
sanctity of Ebba : for it was promised that this

282 ST. EBBA,

great judgment should not be in her time. St.
Adamnan did not venture at first to reveal this sad
secret to his abbess. His mind was burdened with
it, as the young Samuel's with the knowledge of
Eli's gloomy fortunes. But among his brother
monks it was too much for him to keep silence
from good words ; his heart grew hot within him,
and at last he spake with his tongue. The matter
soon came to the ears of the abbess. She sent for
St. Adamnan, and inquired minutely of the vision,
asking why he had not made her acquainted with
it sooner. He said he had concealed it in order to
spare her the affliction, and that, furthermore, it had
been made known to him that this ruin would not
happen in her days. The very knowledge of the
revelation produced a temporary return to strict-
ness ; but after the death of the holy abbess the
prophecy was fulfilled. Yet was it rather a fiery
baptism than a fierce destruction to that holy house ;
for the chastity of St. Ebba of the seventh century
seems to have descended upon her namesake, the
sainted abbess of Coldingham, in the ninth, whose
daring piety suggested to her nuns that they should
all disfigure and mutilate their features with a
razor, when the Danes were coming upon them, in
order to quench the brutal lusts of their ferocious
assailants, and so preserve their chastity.

Doubtless, amid the peaceful exercises of her
monastic home, Ebba's declining years were sad-
dened by the knowledge of what was coming upon
her beloved Coldingham. Added to this there
would be the harassing suspicion of a continued
laxity which it was difficult to trace out, and eradi-

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 283

cate from her community : and the saints have at
once such acquaintance with themselves, and such
a clear vision of the real hatefulness of sin, that
they seem to ordinary Christians to become un-
truthful in their excess of self-reproach. Ebba
would no doubt be full of self-accusation. She
would consider her sins, her misgovernment, her
want of vigilance, to be the cause of this laxity.
She would dwell upon her own demerits, and by a
kind of natural effort, such as humility is wont to
put forth, she would remove out of sight the
heavenly intimation of the delayed judgment, and
refuse to be consoled by it. But if she wept the
more, and prayed the more, if she redoubled her
austerities till her cell was stained with the blood
of the secret discipline, she would act not the less
but the more energetically for her increased pen-
ance. Age, which even to saints is often allotted
as a time of rest, a tranquil antechamber of the new
world so soon to be entered, was no interval of rest
to her. A long, weary, thankless task was hers.
She had to fight with a corrupt community, to
struggle with untoward nuns and stubborn monks,
to be baffled yet not to faint, repulsed but returning
to the attack, to keep the heart of the mother while
discharging the vindictive office of the judge. End-
less were the things which exercised her weary
vigilance, — cold or hurried recitation of the office,
irreverent celebration of the mass, want of plain-
ness in the refectory, languor in the manual labour,
evasions of holy obedience, the spirit of self-seeking,
which amidst the bare walls, unfurnished cells and
hard life of a monastery finds nutriment enough.

284 ST. EBBA,

So went the years of Ebba's age : not in tranquil
meditation on the Song of Songs, not in the spir-
itual delights of cloistered seclusion, not in the
gentle ascents of mystic contemplation, not in rap-
ture, repose, or the sweet forestallings of heavenly
espousals, but wrestling with the evil and the foul
spirits who possessed her monastery, bruised and
wounded and wearied, and meeting death while
yet covered with the dust and blood of battle, and
the contest's unseemly disarray, and victory not
yet certified. Strange harbour for a gentle nun
was that old age of hers ! Yet was she more than
conqueror. She sanctified herself in that unseason-
able strife, for it was mercifully sent her to trade
with and multiply her merits. And if judgment
still came on Coldingham, who knows what good
she may have done to single souls, how many be-
came penitents and passed away in peace before
the fire came, or how great the remnant was of
those who suffered the loss, yet held them fast by
God, took the judgment and glorified Him in it,
and grew in the spirit of compunction ? Who
knows if the holy priest who told St. Bede of St.
Adamnan's prophecy was not one of those with
whom the abbess travailed in birth a second time
till Christ was formed in them ? Certainly it is
recorded that partly through the revelation given
to St. Adamnan, and partly through the judicious
rigours of the holy abbess, a great though not
lasting reformation took place at Coldingham, and
that she did not live to witness its second degen-
eracy : though its future strictness and purity after
its punishment may have been earned by the

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 285

blessed intercession of its sainted foundress, when
she was called to her reward. " Full of virtues
and good works she departed to her heavenly
Spouse" on the 25th of August 683 or 684, about
four years before St. Cuthbert. She was buried in
her own monastery ; miracles were wrought through
her intercession, and apparitions of the blessed
abbess were vouchsafed, which are recorded in her
life, and other tokens given, whereby the Church
was certified of her sanctity, and enrolled her
among the Saxon Saints.

THE LIFE OF

ST. ADAMNAN

MONK OF COLDINGHAM, A.D. 689

OF this blessed saint and the heights of his heroic
penance very little is known, but enough to make
us wish to know more. A brief notice of him will
naturally follow the life of St. Ebba. There are,
however, two remarks suggested by his life, on
which it may not be amiss to say a few words,
considering the practical end which these memoirs
of the saints have in view.

First we may observe that what little is known
of St. Adamnan is connected with the decay of
fervour in the monastery of Coldingham. To a
pious person, surely, no matter what his opinions
may be, the degeneracy of religious institutes and
orders must be a humbling and distressing subject
for reflection. Yet by literary men of later days,
and especially by Protestants and other heretics,
this degeneracy has been laid hold of with almost a
desperate eagerness either for the purpose of sneer-
ing at religion altogether, or vilifying the holy
Roman Church, or discountenancing the strictness
of Catholic morals. Now let it be admitted fully

,86

ST. ADAMNAN 287

that this degeneracy is a fact, and that it has taken
place in many instances almost incredibly soon after
the first fervour of a new institute, always excepting,
as truth compels us, the most noble and glorious
company of St. Ignatius, which, next to the visible
Church, may perhaps be considered the greatest
standing miracle in the world. History certainly
bears witness to this decay ; but it must not be
stated in the exaggerated way usual to many. It
was not till the end of the tenth century that the
decline of monastic fervour began to lead to edtmses
and corruptions ; and for at least six centuries what
almost miraculous perfection, heavenly love, self-
crucifying austerities, mystical union with God, and
stout-hearted defence of the orthodox faith reigned
among the quietly succeeding generations of the
Egyptian cenobites and solitaries ! In the thirteenth
century again the Church interfered, and at her
touch, as if with the rod of Moses, there sprang
forth those copious streams which satisfied the
extraordinary thirst of Christendom in those times.
The revered names of St. Dominic and St. Francis
may remind us of what that age did. And when
was the Church of Rome ever so great, ever so
obviously the mother of saints, or when did she
ever so wonderfully develop the hidden life within
her, as in the sixteenth century ? St. Ignatius, St.
Francis Xavier, St. Francis Borgia, St. Francis of
Sales, St. Philip Neri, St. Felix of Cantalice, and
many others, sprang almost simultaneously from
the bosom of a Church so utterly corrupt and anti-
Christian that part of mankind deemed it necessary
to fall off from her lest their souls should not be

I

288 ST. ADAMNAN,

saved ! Stated then fairly and moderately, let the
fact of monastic degeneracy be admitted, and what
follows ? Is it anything more than an illustration
of the Catholic doctrine of original sin ? Is it a
fit or decent subject of triumph to miserable sinners
who share personally in the corruption of their
fellows ? When such boastings are introduced into
historical panegyrics of constitutions, parliaments,
monarchies, republics, federacies and the like, what
is it but an d fortiori argument against such mere
woildly institutions? If a company of men or
women leave their homes, enter upon a joyless life
of poverty, singleness, and obedience, to work, to
beg, to pray, to sing, to watch, to fast, to scourge
themselves, and behold ! in a century or so, they
degenerate and abandon the strictness of their
institute, what must become of a corporation
gathered together for gain and for aggrandisement ?
Either it must grow corrupt in a still shorter time,
or, as the other alternative, having been corrupt
from the beginning, as being secular, it will proceed
to such an extremity of wickedness that nations, or
kings, or people, as the case may be, will rise and
tread it out of the earth as something to be endured
no longer. Surely there is something stupid, as
well as unmanly, in this fierce exultation over the
degeneracy of monastic orders. Roman law, the
feudal system, chivalry, the municipalities of the
Middle Ages — what light must such a course of
reasoning throw on these things, so often set forth
and illustrated with all the splendours of histo-
rical eloquence ? One would imagine that to be a
really philosophical historian heart and feeling were

MONK OF COLDINGHAM 289

required, a strong sense of fellowship with our kind,
a humbling acknowledgment of what is evil, and
above all an assiduous detection of what is, through
God's mercy, honourable, pure, and good ; and
what a different object would the Church of the
dark ages be in a history written on principles like
these ?

But readers as well as writers have often exhibited
a strange delight in these laboured invectives against
monastic degeneracy ; and this is very natural. It
would be very unpleasant for us to pray so many
hours, to get up at nights, to fare badly, to sleep on
boards, to be poor, to have somebody else's will to
do instead of our own, to spend summer days amid
the fumes of crowded hospitals, to wear hair-shirts,
and so forth ; and we cannot help feeling a little
angry with people who did so ; because, however
clear it may be that it was all part and parcel of
Romish corruption, there is a kind of lingering
irritable feeling within us that there was, on the
face of it, to say the least, something more evan-
gelical about such a life than about days spent in
the luxurious houses, the costly furniture, varied
meals, literary pastimes, elegant entertainments,
smooth conventions, of modern society, notwith-
standing the Sunday sermon, the carriage, the
stove, the cushion, and the pew— our admonitions
of the unseen world, our demonstrations of faith
in the truth of the Gospel. Well — but let readers
think a little. The monastic orders grew very
corrupt ; yet still it may not follow that there is
any inexorable necessity of leading a comfortable
life. The Dominicans began to eat flesh ! The
VOL. IV. T

290 ST. ADAMNAN,

Carmelites to put on shoes ! The Cluniacs to wear
leather garments and to have more than two dressed
dishes ! But supposing all these things were de-
clinations from a rule they were bound to keep, did
they, even the congregations which remained un-
reformed, did they subside into an easy, indulgent
life, and put the awkward precepts of the Gospel
out of sight as we do ? Do people, when they read
of an Order declining from its rule, and moralise
Dn it, rather than on themselves, as readers are unhap-
pily prone to do, do they remember that in that
fallen monastery were nocturns, and the diurnal
hours, and fasts, and vigils, and silence, and celi-
bacy, and sundry other very mortifying obser-
vances ? A sandalled Carmelite cannot be brought
to the level of modern comfort, self-indulgence, or
even of idleness, generally considered the exclusive
characteristic of a monk. Take the Benedictine
congregations in all their changes, from Bernon of
Gigni to John de Ranee of La Trappe, and the life
which the easiest among them led was something
far more penitential, austere, devoted and unearthly,
than what we should deem the very heights of a
rigid perfection. It were better to take shame to
ourselves : the life of the least strict Order would be,
it is feared, an impracticable standard of holiness
for us, accustomed to the hourly exercise of freedom
and self-will.

It is quite conceivable, however, that a Catholic
reader should feel pained and in a degree perplexed
when the lives of the saints bring him into imme-
diate contact with any flagrant instance of monastic
degeneracy, as in this case of Coldingham while

MONK OF COLDINGHAM 291

under the government of St. Ebba. But it does
not follow that a state of laxity has grown up in the
abbey while under the rule of the saint. It may
many times be an evil of old standing, too far gone
to admit of remedy, and perhaps even brought to a
head by the energetic measures of reform attempted
by the superior. And again the horror and hatred
of sin produced in an earnest and sensitive mind
by the sight of degeneracy may not unfrequently
have been God's instrument in exciting that eminent
spirit of compunction which distinguishes the saints
who have lived amidst such unhappy circumstances,
and at the same time the decay of fervour among
those around them and their own inability to stem
the gathering torrent may have been the special
trials designed for their sanctification. St. Benedict
might have set his affections too strongly on his
beloved abbey of Monte Cassino, and we know how
he was tried by the distressing foreknowledge of its
destruction. In the same way many of the circulars
addressed by St. Alphonso Liguori to his congre-
gation of Redemptorists exhibit not unfrequently
almost an anguish of spirit at the creeping in of
any little custom which threatened to mar the per-
fectness of poverty and self-renunciation, such as
using carriages on mission, paying any distinctive
attention to the father who preached the evening
sermon, putting mouldings above the doors of their
cells, and the like. Moreover, the whole history of
Robert and the monks of Molesme shows that a
community bent on laxity can always be more than
a match for the abbot, no matter whether judicious
gentleness or judicious seventy come uppermost in

292 ST. ADAMNAN,

his character. Innocent the Third was foiled over
and over again in trying to compel the Roman nuns
to keep cloister ; and when at length three cardinals
effected it, it was only through the help of the
wonder-working Dominic. Thus a corrupt or
degenerate community under the governance of a
saint does not afford any ground for imputing
feebleness or fault to the superior ; it may be in
the one case the trial which perfects his holiness,
or in the other the very originating cause, speaking
humanly, of his greater strictness and thirst after
perfection.

We have not forgotten St. Adamnan all this while.
His being known to us only through the degeneracy
of the house of which he was a son has led us to
make this first prefatory remark on the subject of
monastic degeneracy altogether. We have still
another observation to make, but it is wholly con-
nected with the saint himself.

We started by saying that very little is known
of St. Adamnan ; but it so happens that that little
is of a peculiarly instructive nature to ourselves,
giving us a lesson where perhaps we most of all
need it, namely, by illustrating the character of
true Christian repentance. Sacramental confes-
sion does not exist among us as a system: penance
has no tribunals in the Anglican Church. Of
course many consequences result from this, such
as that it makes our ecclesiastical system so start-
lingly unlike anything primitive that the long preva-
lent arrogation to ourselves of a primitive model
seems an almost unaccountable infatuation. This
is perhaps not of paramount importance to a com-

MONK OF COLDINGHAM 293

munity which has a duty nearer home and more
at hand, that is, reconciliation with the present
Catholic Church. But those consequences of want-
ing confession which have to do with the character
of our practical religion, and the peril and safety
of our souls, are of paramount importance. Now
one of the features of modern religion (we are not
speaking of Catholic countries), which would have
struck the ancient Christians as a perplexity, is
this : an immense body of baptized Christians
lead the years of early manhood in negligence,
irreverence, nay even in the mortal sins of un-
chastity ; dissipation is a weary thing in its own
nature, and in time such men grow more staid,
more outwardly moral, more decorously respectful
towards the ordinances of religion ; they enter on
their professions, marry, settle in life, and by an
imperceptible process slide into good Christian
people. There is no violent sundering between
their past lives and their new ones ; no strongly
marked penances ; no suspicion that penances are
needed ; no notion of the self-revenge of godly
sorrow; they think, and people say it for them,
that everybody has a certain amount of wildness
which he must run through ; that there is nothing
shocking if only a man run through it in youth, and
then all is as it should be ; with no other change
than such as time and selfishness will naturally
bring about ; the dissolute, unchaste youth becomes
all that we can desire and esteem as a professional
married man. These smooth transmutations in
baptized persons not excommunicated would surely
have been a perfect puzzle to a man of the second

294 ST, ADAMNAN,

century, till he came to understand them ; and
then as surely they would have been a perfect
abomination, so very little would they meet with
his ideas of Christian repentance. What would
have been his criticism on the ecclesiastical system
which presented such a phenomenon it may be as
well not to conjecture. Of course it is clear that
sacramental confession would soon purge the at-
mosphere of such phenomena. To those, then,
who will receive it, St. Adamnan may read a
lesson on the entireness, completeness, energy, and
enduring self-revenge of penance ; the more so as
this is all we know about him, except that God
seems to have set His seal upon the blessed saint's
austerity, by favouring him with the revelation of
the tremendous judgment about to fall on his
brother monks of Coldingham.

St. Adamnan of Coldingham was a Scot by birth.
It is not known how old he was when he took the
monastic habit ; but we are informed that during
his youth he had committed some mortal sin of a
very grievous kind. It is spoken of by St. Bede
as a single action, not as an habitual course of
wickedness ; and, therefore, putting it at the worst
as a deed of bloodshed, and comparing the circum-
stances of his times with the circumstances of ours,
it can hardly have been so bad as a long deliberate
indulged habit of unchastity in young persons en-
joying the advantages of a Christian education.
It can hardly have been so bad, one would think,
in the eye of the Church, and as a single act it
cannot have had that utterly debasing influence
over his whole nature which a sinful habit must

MONK OF COLDINGHAM 295

inevitably exercise. However, it pleased God to
give Adamnan deep and keen sentiments of com-
punction, apparently as soon as the fever of temp-
tation had subsided and he had come to a right
mind. He is described as being most "direfully
horrified " at his sin, especially when he thought of
the intolerable strictness of the judgment to come.

What is the first step which a rightly instructed
Christian must take, when it pleases God to give
him the grac« of compunction ? Clearly he must
resort to the consolations of the Gospel and the
merits of the Saviour as laid up in the sacrament
of penance. The "albs of his baptism" have
become filthy ; great are the mercies of God that
the sackcloth of the penitent is left for him.
Adamnan, with befitting humility, repaired to a
priest whom he judged competent to instruct him
in the way of salvation, and begged to learn in
what way he could best avoid the wrath to come.
When the priest had heard his confession, he said,
" A great wound requires a careful healing ; you
must, therefore, be as instant as you can in fasts,
psalms, and prayers, in order that by preoccupying
the Face of the Lord1 in confession, you may come
to find Him propitious." Adamnan, youth as he
was, saw nothing stern in the unworldly life laid
down for him ; the horrors of a stained conscience
had quite eclipsed the gay temptations of opening
manhood, and the sunny prospects of the almost
untried world. Doubtless it was not altogether
the expected fulfilment of boyhood's day-dreams;

1 Ps. xciv. Vulg.

296 ST. ADAMNAN,

but the fetters of sin — they were galling him, and
everything seemed light in comparison of them.
He answered as a young man was likely to do,
readily and generously, yet with something of for-
wardness ; it was not unlike the answer of the
royal-hearted brothers that would have the right
and the left of their Blessed Lord, and who did
through His grace, and acceptance of their for-
wardness, come to sit on heavenly thrones. " I
am a youth," said Adamnan boldly, " and I am
vigorous in body ; whatever you shall impose upon
me, I can easily endure to go through with it, if
only I may be saved in the day of the Lord ; nay,
I could do it though I were to pass the whole night
in prayer standing, and spend the whole week in
abstinence." Many repentances begin as promis-
ingly as this, with a good hatred of half-measures ;
perhaps that so few go on as well may be owing
in part to the want of intelligent confessors and
directors.

Adamnan, fortunately, had met with a wise and
holy priest. He satisfied his penitent's craving for
austerity, while he restrained what was but impulse
in it. " It is too much," said the good man, " for
you to go the whole week without food ; it is
enough for you to fast two or three days in it ; do
this for the present. I will return to you in a short
time, and then I will explain to you more fully
what you are to do, and how long your penance
is to last." Having then described to him the
method of his penance (mensura pcenitendi) the
priest departed, and Adamnan began his new life.
Meanwhile, some sudden business called his con-

MONK OF COLDINGHAM 297

fessor over to Ireland, of which country he was a
native, and there he died. Adamnan seems to have
regarded this event as a token that it was God's
will his penance should last his whole lifetime,
and he ever after regarded the priest's injunction
to go on till he came again, as a sacred command.
He led a life of the strictest continence, took the
monastic habit and vows, often spent entire nights
in prayer, and ate only on Thursdays and Sundays,
taking no sustenance of any kind during the rest
of the week. This very austere life, which was at
first sustained by the fear of the Divine Wrath,
became in a while easy through the sweetness of
the Divine Love, while he was cheered by looking
out for the promised reward in the life to come.
It did not seem to him servile to ponder his reward ;
he did not refine upon his religious feelings, but
loving God with all his heart and soul, and showing
forth the reality of that love by the self-chastise-
ments of penance, he could say with the psalmist,
" Inclinavi cor meum ad faciendas justificationes
tuas in aeternum, propter retributionem."

Such was the repentance of Adamnan : such was
the repentance of a Christian in the seventh century :
and though some may say that the doctrine of pen-
ance was very corrupt in St. Adamnan's days, there
certainly were a great many things in it strikingly
resembling St. Paul's carefulness, clearing of them-
selves, indignation, fear, vehement desire, zeal and
revenge, whereof he speaks to the Corinthians.
There was plainly a new self and an old self in
Adamnan, cognisable by himself and his acquain-
tances ; and it is the want of this which makes us

LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

298 ST. ADAMNAN,

fear so sadly for the unsoundness of that quiet,
gradual, complacent change which lifts the character
with years (as if time itself were a sacrament) from
the impure, dissolute youth to the sober husband,
moral citizen, and kind neighbour. Time lias a
healing power, but its healing is not sacramental.
We are not saying that penance is not true
penance if it falls short of St. Adamnan's, or that
it must needs take the peculiar shape of his
austerities. There are ordinary Christians who
serve God acceptably without being called to the
eminences of the saints. Penance may be true
penance, and yet have none of that " heroicity " in
it which the promoter of the faith would demand
if canonisation were claimed for the penitent. It
is the substantial, real, vigorous doctrine implied
in such a penance, illustrated, embodied, and ex-
pounded by it, which we would fain recall. If
men would only learn to humble themselves by
confession, faith in the ecclesiastical absolutions
would grow in them as a matter of course, and the
moral effects of confession on their own characters
would be found more momentous than they could
have conceived beforehand.

For how many years St. Adamnan led this austere
life we are not told, nor how long he was an inmate
of the cells of Coldingham. But St. Bede says that
it was for a long time. Now it happened after this
long time that Adamnan and another monk had
to make a journey, possibly on some business
connected with the monastery. Their business
finished, they returned to Coldingham. At some
distance the noble abbey with its towers and tall

MONK OF COLDINGHAM 299

roofs and manifold pile came into view, and at
the sight of the lofty buildings Adamnan began to
weep bitterly ; for we read of him before this that
God had endowed him with the gift of tears, in all
ages so characteristic of the saints. His companion
naturally demanded why a prospect, which should
cheer him, on the contrary made him weep. "The
time comes," replied Adamnan, "when a devouring
fire shall destroy all these buildings which you see,
both private and public." Probably Adamnan's
reputation for sanctity was such that his words did
not fall lightly to the ground among his brethren
at Coldingham. At any rate his companion on this
occasion seems to have questioned him no further,
but as soon as they arrived at the monastery he
related them to St. Ebba the abbess.

St. Ebba was greatly troubled within herself at
this disquieting relation ; she sent for Adamnan,
and questioned him strictly as to the meaning of
his words. The holy monk replied as follows :
*' Not long since, while I was spending the night in
watching and psalmody, suddenly I saw a person
whom I did not know standing by me ; when I was,
as it were, terrified by his presence, he told me not
to fear, and, speaking to me in a familiar tone, he
said, 'You do well in not spending in sleep this
quiet time of night, but in being instant in watches
and prayers.' I answered him that I had much
need to be instant in salutary watches that I might
sedulously deprecate the Divine anger for my wan-
derings. He added, ' What you say is true ; you
and many have need to redeem your sins by good
works, and when they cease from the labours of

300 ST. ADAMNAN,

temporal things, then to toil the more readily
through the appetite of eternal goods ; but very
few indeed do so : I have but now visited and
examined the whole monastery in order, I have
inspected the cells and the beds, and I have found
none out of the whole number except yourself
occupied about the health of his soul ; but all, men
and women alike, are either slothfully asleep in
bed, or watch in order to sin. Nay, the very cells
that were built for praying or reading are now
turned into resorts for eating, drinking, talking,
and other enticements. The virgins, too, dedicated
to God, put off the reverence of their profession,
and, whenever they have time, take pains in weaving
fine robes, either to adorn themselves as brides, to
the great peril of their monastic state, or to win the
admiration of strangers. Wherefore a heavy ven-
geance of savage fire is deservedly prepared for this
place and the inhabiters of it.' "

Such was Adamnan's tale ; and no doubt it
sounded very dreadful to the ears of the holy
abbess. " Why did you not tell me of it sooner ? "
she demanded. To this the monk humbly replied,
" I was afraid, because of my reverence for you, as
I thought you would be excessively disturbed by it ;
and yet you may have this consolation, that the
plague will not come in your days."

The seventh century was not an age of sneering,
natural as that facile sin is to all ages. When
Adamnan's communication with St. Ebba was
known throughout the monastery fear came upon
all ; austerity, penance, self-chastisement, prayer,
fast and vigil, became the order of the day, and

MONK OF COLDINGHAM 301

doubtless many thought and read of Nineveh.
This, however, was not of long continuance, and it
seems in a measure to have been kept up by the
example and authority of the abbess ; for we are
told that after her death things relapsed into their
old corrupt state, and the monks grew more and
more wicked. An interval of security had elapsed,
and probably Adamnan's prophecy had come to be
disbelieved. However, while the monks of Colding-
ham were crying peace the destruction came. The
monastery was reduced to ashes in 686, and it is
said, on what authority does not appear, first that
Adamnan survived the burning of Coldingham three
years, dying in 689 ; and secondly, that it was in
consequence of the degeneracy of Coldingham,
which he attributed to its being a double monastery
of monks and nuns, that St. Cuthbert made his
stringent laws against women so much as coming
to hear mass in the church where his monks cele-
brated. This is hardly likely, for, although St.
Cuthbert was distinguished by an unusual jealousy
on this point, a reference to the table of penances
in St. Columban's Rule will show that he was only
carrying out what he had been accustomed to at
Melrose and had been derived from lona. This
account of St. Adamnan's vision was told to St.
Bede by Edgils, a priest who, leaving Coldingham
at the fire, took up his abode in the monastery of
Wearmouth, and whom St. Bede describes as his
most reverend brother priest. The Divine judgments
are indeed mercies. Though at times God seems to
cover Himself with a cloud that our prayer should
not pass through, yet His compassions are new

302 ST. ADAMNAN

every morning. The storm broke over Colding-
ham, but it cleared away. When the wild Danes
came, St. Ebba's monastery was still a living mother
of saints, and Adamnan the penitent, the prophet,
unforgotten.

THE LIFE OF
ST. BEGA

VIRGIN AND ABBESS, A.D. 650

ANY one climbing the brow of Hawcoat im-
mediately to the west of Furness Abbey, and seat-
ing himself at the foot of the modern tower where
the monks' chair originally was, may see one of
the most magnificent views in the north of Eng-
land. And if the chair of the good Camaldolese
above Naples commands a prospect more beauti-
ful, though less extensive, the view from Hawcoat
will be at least more interesting to an English
Catholic. He is sitting on the west side of the
peninsula of Furness. At his feet, supposing the
tide to be high, is the estuary of the Duddon,
running up into the mountains till the silver gleam
of the waters is lost in a purple gorge. Before
him the sun is setting over the Scotch hills beyond
the Solway, and through the bright haze the peaks
of the Isle of Man are flushed with a deep gold.
On his right are the mountains which embrace
within their many arms the English lakes ; the
blue sea studded with white sails is on his left

in front ; and round the base of the shadowy Black

303

304 ST. BEGA,

Combe he perceives a region, comparatively flat,
intervening between the roots of the mountains
and the ever-foamy line of the Atlantic. It is
watered by the Mite, the Irt, and the Esk, uniting
in the sandlocked pool of Ravenglass, and is striped
brilliantly with yellow corn-fields and ruddy fallows,
up to the very headland of St. Bees.

Such was the view which the old monks of Fur-
ness loved, and to which they came through the
woody path, having erected a stone chair for the
tranquil enjoyment of the scene. But Furness is
a ruin, where the simple-mannered Cistercians
served God, and so are the aisles of the woody
Calder. Still the name of Copeland Forest belongs
to the region, still the uncertain legend of St. Bega
hangs like a mist over the place, and still upon her
holy headland is a school for Christian doctrine.
The desolation of modern change has not quite
trodden out all the footsteps of the Catholic past.

We have now to tell the legend of St. Bees, so
far as it may be told, so far as history can take
cognisance of it. There seems to have been more
than one St. Bega ; for if, as Alford thinks, St.
Heyne, the first nun in Northumberland, and who
received the veil from St. Aidan, is the same with
St. Bega, then she can hardly be the Bega who
succeeded St. Hilda at Hacanos, for that St. Bega
died a hundred years after St. Aidan, and yet she
is generally taken to be the same. Mabillon makes
her to die at Hacanos, Alban Butler at Calcaria,
supposed to be Tadcaster. It seems next to im-
possible to reconcile the chronology or conflicting
statements which have come down to us, and it

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 305

is therefore but right to advertise the reader that
the following pages can make no claim to historical
accuracy. They follow for the most part the
monkish legend printed from the Cottonian MSS.
(Faust. B. 4, fol. 122-139) among the Carlisle
tracts ; and at any rate put the reader in possession
of what St. Bega's own monks believed about their
holy foundress some centuries later than her own
time. The devotion to her was very great through
the north of England ; she is connected with both
the western and eastern coasts, and her headland
is still crowned with a religious college called after
her name ; so that it is interesting at any rate to
know what the monks had collected about her
from the three sources which the life specifies,
chronicles, authentic histories, and the tradition
of trustworthy people. The monk compiled his
biography for the edification of the sons of the
Church ; the same end may hold good still ; and
it should be remembered that if we cannot prove
our facts by the usual historical evidence, neither
is there anything to throw discredit upon them.
The only doubt is whether we are not relating the
acts of two saints in the life of one.

Bega was the daughter of an Irish king, possibly
Donald the Third, possessed of great and widely
spread influence in the early part of the seventh
century. He was a Christian, and an earnest man
to boot, and Bega was baptized as an infant, and
taught in her tender years the mysteries of the
faith. In very childhood God inspired her with an
ardent love of holy virginity, and she seems to have
been almost preserved from the pollution of impure

VOL. IV. U

306 ST. BEGA,

thoughts. As a girl she avoided all public amuse-
ments, and, fearing lest idleness should prove a
source of sin, she was studious to fill up the whole of
her time with some employment. A weary spirit she
knew to be the sleep of the soul, and praying with
the psalmist, " Dormitavit anima mea prae taedio,
confirma me in verbis Tuis," she devoted a large
portion of her time to the study of holy books ; and
when her mind required relaxation she worked gold
fringes, and was singularly skilful in a method of
interweaving gold and jewels. While others were
engaged in the pursuits and recreations of youth,
she was to be found making decorations for the
church ; for as yet the worship of domestic comfort
was unknown, and the broidery frame was filled
with costly silks and metal threads, not for the
furniture of a palace, but as frontals for the altar,
or other holy purposes. If time be of all talents
one of the most fearful committed to our charge,
and it be still true that the righteous are scarcely
saved, what are we to think of a state of things
when the young females of a country should spend
more than a third of their time in multiplying by
frivolous industry the gay and costly adornments
of private ease and luxury ? It was not so with
Bega. She was busy with her embroidery and her
golden fringe ; but it was for the worship of God.
And, therefore, instead of dissipation of mind, visible
in levity of conversation, she learned in her work
how to have a spirit self-recollected, an aptitude for
mental prayer, a carefulness of speech, and a
virginal modesty which won the hearts of all who
approached her.

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 307

Such was she in her girlhood ; but riper age
brought fresh cares upon her. She was eminent
for her beauty, and that is a fearful gift in a king's
court. Offers of marriage poured in upon her
from Irish and foreign princes ; the suitors sent her
magnificent presents, bracelets, and ear-rings, and
cloth of gold, and rings studded with precious
stones. But all these things she counted as loss
for the love of Christ, and its surpassing excellency.
True it is, that as a princess she was ofttimes obliged
to go about in robes adorned with gold, yet it was
a self-denial to her, a mortification rather than a
thing she prized, for notwithstanding this outward
seeming of regal pomp, the glory of the king's
daughter was all within. Her thoughts were ever
running upon the excellences of a monastic life ; to
be a nun was more after her heart than to be a
queen, for that sweet truth was never out of her
mind that the angels neither marry nor are given
in marriage ; and she would fain be as they, if so
be it would please God to give her the peerless gift,
and who that heartily covets it is not assisted
thereto ? " O quam pulchra est casta generatio cum
claritate ! immortalis enim est memoria illius :
quoniam apud Deum nota est et apud homines."

This panting after holy virginity, for which many
of the saints have been so conspicuous almost
from their cradles, seems unreal to the children of
the world. Of course it does : they cannot even
put themselves for a moment in the position of
those who so feel. It would require a transposing
of all their affections quite out of the question in
their case, even in imagination, a new nomencla-

308 ST. BEGA,

ture both for things earthly and things heavenly, a
new measure and a new balance, which even they
who fall and by God's grace rise again do but
handle clumsily for a long while. How do all
graces seem even to such penitents as nothing,
because they can never attain that one so fair, so
bright, so beautiful ! What is there in penance so
productive of humility as the keen rankling thought
that the virgin's crown is lost ? And if they are
blessed who so learn to humble and to afflict them-
selves, if they are blessed who are the least in the
Kingdom of Heaven, is it too much to kneel with
lowliest veneration and a supplicating spirit before
the altars of the virgin saints, where God is hon-
oured in His servants, praying Him to quicken
their prevailing prayers that we may have nerve to
bring our penance to a safe issue, and so attain
unto our rest ?

The case being so \vith the most sweet gift of
virginity, Bega, says her biographer in his touching
way,1 " studied to hear the bleating of the heavenly
Lamb, with the ear of hearing ; and to weave her-
self a nuptial robe from Its fleece, that she might
be able to go forth to Its nuptials, like a bride
ornamented with her jewels, to see her Betrothed
decorated with a crown, and to be clothed by Him
with the garment of salvation, and that she might
deserve to be surrounded by the robe of eternal
gladness. Despising thus all the allurements of
this impure world, its vanities and false delusions,
the venerable virgin, offering up her virginity one

1 Mr. Tomlinson's Trans, in the Carlisle Tracts, p. 4.

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 309

clay to God, bound herself by a vow that she would
not contract nor experience the bands of marriage
with any one, by her own will, that 1 not knowing
the marriage-bed in sin she might have fruit in
respect of holy souls."

While she was meditating upon this vow of
chastity, which possibly she had not made formally,
a person suddenly stood before her, of an agreeable
aspect and reverendly clothed. Whether it was
one of the blessed angels, or one of the departed
saints, or some holy man to whom the secrets of
her mind had been revealed, we are not told. He
seemed to know all that was passing in her thoughts,
and admonished her to keep the laudable vow of
chastity. And before leaving her he gave her a
bracelet with a cross graved upon it, saying, " Re-
ceive this blessed gift sent to you by the Lord God,
by which you may know that you are for His
service, and that He is your Spouse. Place it,
therefore, as a sign upon your heart and upon your
arm, that you may admit no one else beside Him."
When he had uttered these words he disappeared,
leaving the holy virgin overwhelmed with spiritual
consolation. Indeed, she needed now more than
ordinary strength in order to overcome the world
and carry out her brave and godly purpose.

From what follows we must suppose either that
the Irish king, her father, had fallen off from his
first fervour in the faith, or that the monkish his-
torian has at the outset somewhat exaggerated his
submission to the Divine law. It fell out that the

1 This is the third antiphon in the Commune Virginian.

310 ST. BEGA,

fame of her beauty and maidenly bearing was
carried as far as to the court of Norway. The
report of her virtues, together with the power and
wealth of her father, induced the prince, the heir to
the throne, to desire her for his bride. Whereupon
he sent some ambassadors into Ireland, whose first
duty was to see and judge whether the beauty and
acquirements of the princess came at all near to
what was reported of her, and, if it were so, then to
ask her in marriage from her father. The ambas-
sadors found that, so far from having exaggerated,
fame had even fallen short of the loveliness and
grace of Bega ; and without any further scruple
they demanded her in marriage for the heir of
Norway. Her father, having already sufficient
alliances among the Irish chieftains, was ambitious
to extend his influence beyond the seas, and he lent
a willing, nay, even a greedy ear to the proposals
of the Norwegian ambassadors. He sent them to
their own country loaded with presents, and with
a message to the prince that if he would come
himself into Ireland and espouse his daughter, he
would give her honourably to him : for that it was
not dignified or safe to send a young damsel of
such high birth and quality into a distant land
under other escort than that of her husband.

The Norwegian prince admitted the justice and
propriety of the Irish king's demand. The matter
was debated in the council of his father, and it was
determined that the prince should sail for Ireland
and espouse the lovely Bega. The winds were fail
and the seas calm, and in a short time the prince
and his train set foot upon the Irish shores. On

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 311

the day of their landing, the king gave them a
magnificent reception, and a sumptuous banquet ;
and, as it was now eventide, it was unanimously
agreed to defer all mention of the business on
which they had come till the morrow. Then fol-
lowed a scene of wassail and of riot, such as have
been too characteristic of the free and ungrudging
hospitality of the Irish ; but which ill accords with
our notions of a king given up to the Divine law.
It appears that when the night was far advanced
the feast was over, and the sober and the drunken
locked in deep sleep.

But the holy Bega — she was no stranger to all
that was going on about her. Alas ! she knew too
well the purport of the prince's visit ; she knew
the ambition of her father ; she knew that to all
appearance the secret wish of her heart, her holy
covetousness, was not to be satisfied. As her bio-
grapher says, she was exceedingly troubled within
herself, fearing and imagining that the lily of her
secluded garden was about to be immediately
plucked and defiled, and that her precious treasure,
preserved with great care and much labour in an
earthen vessel, yea, if I may so say, in a vase of
glass, was about to be snatched away.

Indeed, her case seemed desperate ; the palace
gates were locked ; there were sentries at all the
avenues leading to it ; the watchmen trod heavily
and regularly, all were wide awake, as though the
evening's debauch rendered double vigilance neces-
sary. The bravest men in Ireland were on their
accustomed guard round the bedside of the king,
and in all the passages of his dwelling, with a

312 ST. BEGA,

dagger on their thighs, a battle-axe on their shoul-
ders, and a javelin in their hands. And if she could
have penetrated beyond the palace, what then ?
Where should she lie hid ? She knew her father's
temper ; he would drag her from the very altars of
a convent if she took refuge there. Besides he had
passed his royal word to the Norwegian prince, and
even a parent is ruthless where honour is at stake.
She knew what the keeping of a royal word had
once done, when he who gave it was ashamed to
break it before the chief estates of Galilee. There
was but one solitary means of escape to which Bega
could betake herself ; it was to prayer, the prayer of
faith. She mourned in her prayer and was vexed ;
the enemy cried so, and the ungodly came on so
fast. She mourned in her prayer, for Satan already
rejoiced at his approaching victory ; she mourned
for the dove's wing, and marvellously was the dove's
wing given to her.

The time of night is described as being that
when drowsiness comes strongest upon men who
are keeping vigils. But Bega had no temptation
to drowsiness, for her spirit was galled and vexed.
She poured out her heart like water, offering up
her prayer with the choice offering of holy tears ;
and she said, " O Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God
and of the Virgin, the author and lover, inspirer
and consecrator, preserver and crowner of virginity,
as Thou knowest how, as it pleaseth Thee, and as
Thou art able to do, preserve in me untouched the
resolution I have taken, that I may dedicate it to
Thee in the heart, and in the flesh of integrity.
For Thou, author of nature, didst, in the time of the

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 313

natural law, bedeck Thy shepherd Abel with a double
wreath, namely, of virginity and of martyrdom ;
Thou, under the written law, didst snatch away to
the heavens, Elijah, clothed in the whiteness of
integrity; Thou didst send before Thee, Thy Baptist
and precursor John, ignorant of stain, and of snowy
chastity. Thou also didst set forth the main hope
of the world, our Lady, as a most beautiful and
special mirror for grace and honour among virgins,
out of whose womb, taking upon Thyself the fail-
ings of our nature, like a bridegroom going forth
from his nuptial couch, Thou didst appear a Saviour
to the world. Thou also, calling Thy beloved John
from the nuptials to the wedding feast of the Lamb,
hast preserved him for ever, blooming in the un-
fading flower of virginity, and hast delivered to
him to be guarded, the box of Thy ointments, the
propitiation of human reconciliation. Thou hast
crowned Agnes, Agatha, Lucia and Catherine, and
very many others wrestling in the faith of Thy
name for their chastity, and hast magnified Thy
blessed name by these triumphant signs. There-
fore, I pray, by the grace of these, that I, Thine
handmaid, may find favour in Thine eyes, that
Thou mayest be a helper to me in what I ought
to do in my trouble ; that Thou being my Bene-
factor, Leader, Ruler, and Protector, I may render
to Thee the vow which my lips have pronounced."1
Thus she prayed, and sorrowed deeply ; for her
father was an austere man, and of an inflexible will,
and she knew it was hopeless to attempt to divert

1 Mr. Tomlinson's Trans, pp. 8, 9, 10.

314 ST. BEGA,

him from his purpose. But if Satan rejoiced in
the prospect of frustrating a pure and holy resolu-
tion so fatal to his kingdom, the heavenly angels
were only the more intent upon the custody of this
precious flower in the garden of their Lord. In
the deep stillness of the night, when her prayer
was concluded, there came a sounding Voice, which
said, " Fear not, Bega, most beloved friend ; thy
prayer is heard. Hearken, O daughter, consider
and incline thine ear. Forget also thine own people
and thy father's house. Thou shalt have a house
not made with hands, now prepared for thee in
heaven. It behoveth thee, then, to go from kingdom
to kingdom, from thy people to another people,
from land to land, from Ireland to Britain, which
is called England, and there thy days being ended
in good, I will take thee into the fellowship of
angels. Arise, therefore, and take the bracelet by
which them art pledged to Me, and descending to
the sea, thou shalt find a ship ready prepared,
which will transport thee into Britain."

The virgin rose : her sorrows were past, the rain
of her tears was over and gone, for the voice of her
turtle had sounded in the land. She thought not
of the difficulties, but in the energy of faith she
rose and descended. A deep unnatural slumber
oppressed the guards, as though they too had been
revellers. At the touch of the mysterious bracelet
the portals flew open, till the virgin stood free in
the cold and refreshing air. The seaside was soon
gained ; the ship was there, and she was received
on board without hesitation "or objection. Every
step was smoothed by miracles ; for she had the

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 315

faith of Abraham, meriting to be called as Abraham
was called, and strengthened to obey the call ; for
she left her father's house, and went out not know-
ing whither, except that God was everywhere. The
tender maiden was a true daughter of Sarah, for
overwhelming as was the darkness of her prospects
and her Divine visitation past belief, yet she was not
afraid with any amazement.

Now let us pause upon this act of Bega. It is
worth while to examine it, even though it cause
us to digress. Of course one would deprecate
anything like an apologetic tone or a patronising
explanation when speaking of the blessed saints
whom the Catholic Church holds up to our affec-
tionate reverence. Yet when men have departed so
far from Catholic principles that they have to learn
them again painfully, syllable by syllable, as though
it were a foreign language, it is obvious that they
are wholly incompetent in a great number of in-
stances to understand, much less set a value upon,
the deeds of our Catholic ancestors. One great
object in writing the lives of the saints is to recall,
so far as may be, the old Catholic temper, to have
the old weights and measures of Catholic morality
recognised as standards. It will not, therefore, be
out of place, though it seems a cold interruption
of a religious narrative, to say something on the
propriety of this act of St. Bega.

She fled by night from her father's house to
avoid a marriage to which his word was pledged :
she consulted neither priest nor kindred : she went
she knew not where, imprudently, the world would
say, and under the influence of a heated imaging-

316 ST. BEGA,

tion : and the very first step of this extraordinary
line of conduct was to entrust herself, a helpless
virgin, to the company of rude mariners, who must
obviously have been ignorant of her rank. This is
one way of stating the facts ; and admitting her
to have been sincerely conscientious, was she not
neglecting a plain duty ? Was it not an offence
against natural piety ? Was it not, at best, seeking
after what is only a counsel of perfection through
a manifest breach of an actual commandment ?
Was it not doing evil that good might come ?
Now let it be premised that no one pretends to
say that all the heroic actions of the saints are
imitable by us : this is a caution which cannot
be too frequently repeated ; one of the greatest
illusions of the devil is to persuade unformed
penitents to attempt single actions of the saints.
For, first of all, what was with them the general
result of their whole conduct, or a harmonious
part of a consistent conduct, may be with us an
irregular, disconnected act, and therefore some-
thing totally different from what it was in them :
and again, we cannot tell in their case how far
they were inspired, in what singular ways they
were impressed or with what degree of clearness
the Holy Spirit vouchsafed to make His Will
known to them. Admitting then that the actions
of the saints are not always imitable, we would
contend that Bega was justified in this act of
flying from her father's house to fulfil her vow
of virginity ; and as the objection which may be
raised against this single act will apply to the whole
monastic system and the teaching of monastic

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 317

writers, it may be worth while to say a little more
about it.

There are two things concerning a holy life, the
neglect or adoption of which must entirely change
the character of a man's religion, and however little
connected they may seem when first stated, they
are in reality closely bound together, the one lead-
ing to, strengthening, sustaining, and perfecting the
other. They are Confession, and the practice of
Election, both as to the general state of life which
it is expedient for us to lead, and also as to the
management of particular occurrences with which
we have to deal. If Confession is disused, the in-
ward life of the soul loses what may be called its
sacramental character ; everything is displaced,
cause and effect disjoined and transposed ; and
the medicines of penance taken at random are
converted into the poison of self-will. The practice
of electing one rather than another line of life or
conduct, and making that election a solemn ritual
act, under the spiritual guidance of another, and
according to systematic rules, has for one of its
chief results a strict conscientiousness in the details
of everyday duty, and is closely connected with the
grace of final perseverance according to the text,
11 Cor ingrediens duas vias non habebit successus."
Now it is here that Confession and Election are so
intimately united ; for it is clear that conscientious-
ness in details is equally the moral result of doing
everything as knowing it will have to be honestly
and with much shame revealed to another. Indeed,
the very nature of sacramental Confession is of
itself calculated to bring about such a conscientious-

3i8 ST. BEGA,

ness, as being an awful, though mercifully per-
mitted, anticipation and rehearsal of the last judg-
ment. Although, as Suarez says, secular persons
remaining in the world may find the greatest benefit
from Election, for it prepares them for temptations
and the surprises of sin, and is also a remedy to be
administered to those who have been great sinners,1
yet it is obvious that it is an indispensable duty
when they come to decide such questions as whether
they shall marry, or go into holy orders, or enter a
monastery.

St. Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises notes two
ways in which a general or particular Election may
be made ; one by an impartial deliberation with
prayer and a weighing of and reasoning upon the
opposite views of the question ; another when the
mind is clearly and unmistakably impressed from
above with the conviction that it ought to make
such a choice. The latter is of course supernatural,
and is unlikely to occur to one not in the habit of
timidly and sensitively looking out for God's Will
in every matter, great or small, and being tranquil
and indifferent as to the consequences which the
choice may bring upon one's self. Such was the
kind of Election in which for the most part those
vows of virginity, so frequent in the lives of the
saints, took their rise. So at the very outset any
measures taken because of them are not to be
judged as acts of the saint's own will, or private
deliberation, or original bent of mind : and this
must alter our way of looking at them very materi-

1 Of what importance then to us in our present state !

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 319

ally. We live in times when men are apt first to
choose, and then (speaking even of good men) in
the second place to see what they can make of their
own choice so as to glorify God, to edify His
Church, and save their souls. The Saints began
with a quiet and total indifferency to all ways and
states of life, sought first how they with their turn
of mind could glorify God, and then simply chose
upon that investigation, embracing their state of
life with the quiet ardour of self-renunciation. Now
the first line of conduct is so sadly below the last
that they who pursue the one can hardly, even by
a mental effort, be competent judges of what they
did who embraced the other. This is very much
to be remembered.

The question at issue is thus, and equitably, put
upon very different grounds : it is taken to a higher
and more competent court. Supposing then a
Saint to have a vocation brought before him by a
supernatural impression, vision or voice, and by
applying to this impression the usual tests for dis-
cerning spirits, to find it no illusion of Satan, but
really from God, surely all other duties are immedi-
ately superseded, in the same way (we do not speak
of degree) that they were in the Old Testament times
when God's will was distinctly revealed about any
matter. Still it is not, so to speak, a new revela-
tion, but a special guidance given to an individual
respecting the application to his own case of rules
already given. The case before us, for instance, is
the desertion of parents : we read in Scripture such
passages as these, "Qui non odit patrem suum et
matrem, fratres et sorores, adhuc autem et animam

320 ST. BEGA,

suam, non potest Meus esse discipulus. Sine ut
mortui sepeliant mortuos suos. Qui dixerunt patri
suo, et matri suae, Nescio vos ; et fratribus suis,
Ignore vos ; et nescierunt filios suos, hi custodier-
unt eloquium Tuum, et pactum Tuum servaverunt." l
Consistently with this, great writers have taught
that in the election of our state God's vocation,
conscientiously ascertained so far as we can, is to
supersede the claims even of our parents to control
our choice. "Ab hoc concilio amovendi sunt carnis
propinqui," says St. Thomas.2 Their view was some
such as this, — God is the God of order, and as the
Church is so far as possible a copy of Heaven, it is
instinct with the highest and most beautiful order,
which can only be preserved by a renunciation of
self-will, and an election of a state of life, for every
member of the body not obeying his special
vocation is a dislocated limb, useless himself, and
impeding and encumbering the functions of the
members near him. Acting upon this view, such
men as SS. Thomas Aquinas, Peter of Alcantara,
Francis Xavier, Louis Bertrandi, and others, em-
braced the monastic life without so much as com-
municating their design to their parents. Neither
was this a view of late ages only : it seems to follow
necessarily upon a belief that the apostolic life may
be and ought to have been lived in the Church in
all ages. Cassian relates of Apollonius a story
which shows how natural the " Sine ut mortui

1 St. Luke xiv. 26, ix. 60 ; Deut. xxxiii. 9.

2 The whole of this matter is discussed by St. Thomas in the
Secunda Secundae, quaest. 186-189. Also by Rodriguez, 2, v. 7 ; and
by St. Alphonso, Practica di amar. cap. xi.

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 321

sepeliant mortuos suos " came to the old saints of
Egypt. The brother of that great abbot, knocking
at his cell door, importuned him to come and
render him assistance in trouble. The abbot de-
manded why he came to him rather than to his
other brother, who was a secular person : the reply
was that the other brother had (the abbot not
knowing it) been dead fifteen years ; and I, rejoined
the abbot, have been dead twenty, for so long is it
since I interred myself in this cell.

This digression may perhaps be forgiven as
suggesting the thought whether it is wiser to
assume the reasoning of our own times as a
premiss, and judge the Saints accordingly, rather
than to try, though the effort be humbling at
first, to enter into the principles which led to their
actions, with a view not only of judging them
correctly, but of judging ourselves by them. Alas !
they who nowadays study in the lives of the saints
are travellers in a foreign country ; there is neither
profit nor pleasure till the first irksomeness of a
new language and strange manners is worn off.
Yet we speak of them as though they were alto-
gether such persons as ourselves.

But to return. We left the Irish princess
embarking on a strange ship, leaving rank, luxury,
home, kindred, all things, for her exceeding love of
holy virginity. One who so loved chaste virginity
must have been a person of keen, intense affections,
and doubtless felt as few can feel towards those she
left behind. But she might remember, perhaps,
how the heavenly Spouse of virgin souls had left
His Mother at the age of twelve, without a farewell,

VOL. IV. X

322 ST. BEGA,

and kept her sorrowing three long days ; and how
the first time He preached the Gospel it was at
a marriage feast, and in roughly sounding words
to His blessed Mother; and so St. Bega might
take heart. For the Lord allowed not the plea of
those who would first go and bid them farewell
that are at home before they followed Him. St.
Cyril1 says of the man who promised to follow
Christ if he might bid his kindred farewell, "This
promise is worthy of our admiration and full of all
praise, but to bid farewell to those who are at
home, to get leave from them, shows that he was
still somehow divided from the Lord, in that he
had not yet resolved to make his venture with his
whole heart. For to wish to consult relations,
who would not agree to his proposal, betokens one
somewhat wavering. Wherefore, our Lord con-
demns this, saying, No man, having put his hand
to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the
Kingdom of God. He puts his hand to the plough
who is ambitious to follow, yet looks back again
when he seeks an excuse for delay in returning
home, and consulting with his friends." But Bega
made her venture with a whole heart. Great and
dazzling was all that she left behind, but greater
still and brighter the prize of holy virginity after
which she pressed through the dreary prospect
before her.

The Irish seas are not often calm ; and Bega's
voyage seems to have been attended with consider-
able danger. The voyage was prosperous and the

Cat, Aur. in loc. Oxf. Tr.

!

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 323

wind favourable till they neared the English shore,
that part of the Cumberland coast which went by
the name of Copeland ; there, whether from the
violence of the storm or clumsy piloting, the vessel
was almost lost among the rocks which lay round
a jutting headland. Bega, it is said, made a vow
that if she was preserved she would build a holy
house upon that headland, where still stands to this
day the college of St. Bees. She did land in safety,
and the memorial of her vow still lives upon that
beautiful shore, and the house upon her headland
is one of the fountains which supply with clergy
the northern shires of England.

Bega's first business, after disembarkation, was
to examine the surrounding country. It was
covered with dusky, tangled wood, running down
even to the sea-coast, as may still be seen in some
places where the trees, from the continual action
of the fierce west winds and the splashing of the
salt spray, throw out their half-leaved branches to
the east, and look as if they had been cut in a stiff
form by artificial means. The country too was
thinly peopled, and the presence of the solemn-
sounding sea, and the silence of the umbrageous
woods, rendered it-a fit place wherein to dedicate
a solitary life to God. There she constructed a
cell, or, as others think, adapted a seaside cave for
her hermitage. " There," says her biographer,
"she passed many years in the struggle of most
strict conversation, labouring a long time for the
Lord. Therefore she sat in solitude, and raising
herself above herself, she had leisure, and saw how
the Lord himself is God, tasting frequently how

324 ST. BEGA,

pleasant and sweet He is to all who hope in
Him."

Daily, rising above the level of the green tree
tops, she saw the purple peaks and ridges ; beyond
those beautiful mountains St. Oswald was ruling in
sanctity and peace, and St. Aidan making his epis-
copal visitations on foot, entering the scattered
farms, teaching the little children, and leaving
heavenly peace behind him whithersoever he went.
The king in his bright crown, the weary foot-sore
bishop, — each in their way are doing the work of
God, and spreading the Redeemer's kingdom. And
Bega too, beyond the mountains, — she in her way is
doing the same work. While she sings the divine
praises, and her meditations are differently attuned,
sometimes by the heavy thunder of the rolling sea,
sometimes by the scarcely whispering winds or
deep voices of the wood-pigeons in the trees, she
is spreading the Redeemer's kingdom. Her prayers,
her intercessions, her acts of austerity, her self-im-
posed loneliness, her virginal sacrifice, are communi-
cating secret vigour to the whole Church, and have
power in the invisible world to bring out gifts for
her fello\v-men. For to love God is the first com-
mandment, and activity for our neighbours, without
the love of God, is not the keeping of the second.

But Bega's life in Copeland forest was not wholly
in her Psalter. Tradition assigns her other occu-
pations.1 She was skilled in the knowledge of
medicinal plants, and applied her knowledge to
relieve the ailments of the few poor who theni

1 Mr. Tomlinson's Tract, p. 12. These traditions are not noticed!
in the Cottonian MS., of which Mr. T.'s tract is mostly a translation,

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 325

inhabited that woody region. She perhaps was
the first on that coast who gathered the rosy carra-
geen, and bleached it white, as a sovereign recipe
for many ills, well known at this day among the
cottagers of Furness, who go forth to gather it, or
send their little children, when a rough sea and a
west wind have strewed it on the beach. It was
said too that she lived in supernatural familiarity
with the creatures, the sea-birds and the wolves, and
that they in part supplied her with her food. How
touching is the communion with nature which has
always characterised the Saints ! As in the Holy
Scriptures we read of beasts and birds com-
missioned to fulfil the office of angels in ministering
to the heirs of salvation, so in the records of the
Church we find the same things occurring to the
Saints. If the lions reverenced the virgin Daniel,
they showed a like veneration for the Christian
martyrs in the bloody amphitheatres. A savage
bear licked the wounds of St. Andronicus, a lioness
crouched at the feet of St. Tarachus, a raven
defended the unburied body of St. Vincent. St.
Martin commanded the serpents and they obeyed
him, St. Anthony of Padua called on the fishes to
come to his preaching when the heretics despised
it, and St. Francis, above all, lived in closest com-
munion with the inferior animals. The swallows of
Alviano, the water-bird of Rieti, the pheasant of
Sienna, the wolf of Gubbio, the falcon of Laverna —
there are strange and sweet records how all these
did homage to the blessed St. Francis. Neither are
such things as these merely the legends of late
superstitious ages. The lives of the Egyptian

326 ST. BEGA,

fathers are full of such things ; St. Athanasius
records them of St. Antony ; and early in the fourth
century St. Macrina, the grandmother of the great
Basil, taking refuge with her husband in the forests
of Pontus during persecution, was miraculously fed
by stags, and St. Gregory Nazianzen has recorded
the miracle. And the patterns of all these things
are in the Scripture histories. This is one of the
ways in which from time to time sanctity is per-
"mitted to retrieve portions of that state in which
man was in Eden, and surely such records may be
a great consolation to us of weak faith as showing
that the manner of life the world speaks against, of
self-denial, solitude, voluntary discomfort, fast, vigil,
and virginity, is in reality that life wherein we are
truly working our way back to the Eden whence
we have wandered, as well as imitating Him whose
merciful assumption of our nature pledges to us at
the last even more than the Eden we have lost.
Such miracles are not merely interesting, romantic,
poetical, but they solemnly attest the power and
heavenliness of that system of Catholic morals,
so often stigmatised as degrading, servile, and
superstitious ; and it is as attestations of this that
we should keep them in view, and bring them into
notice. It is in vain for any criticism to make an
impression upon the number, the prevalence in all
countries and in all ages, and the authentic records
of these legends : and how then shall we gainsay
that system under which such miracles took place,
such miracles as Scripture had already given
us patterns of, such miracles as both for great-
ness and for number our blessed Lord Himseli

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 327

taught us to expect after He was ascended up
on high ?

Did the homeless Bega begin to make her seaside
cave a home ? Did something like a local affection
steal upon her, and tell her how hard it was to be
wholly detached from the creatures, and that there
was a poetry in a holy life which might come to be
sought for its own sake, and so do a mischief ? Or
did God please to try His servant further, because
she had strength to bear it? However this may be,
her long residence in the solitudes of Copeland
came to an end. She had been called away from
her father's house, and now she was to leave the
cave and woods so dear to her. Probably through
the envy of the devil, angry at being worsted in his
strife with a weak and lonely woman, the shores of
Copeland became infested by pirates. These were
wild beasts with whom no communion could be
held. True it was she had nothing of riches to
tempt them, nothing bright or fair but the miracu-
lous bracelet of her spiritual espousals. But her
treasure was her chastity ; and so disquieted was
the holy virgin by the presence of these terrible
marauders, that she consulted God, and was com-
manded by revelation to fly from the place ; an
injunction which she seems to have obeyed with
such promptitude that she left behind the bracelet
she so much prized. This fearful alarm which
invaded the quietness of her beloved hermitage, the
hardship of this new exile, were to Bega but fresh
proofs of the love of her heavenly Spouse, drawing
her more closely to Himself, and making her realise
still further that life is but a pilgrimage to Him,

I

328 ST. BEGA,

through which His justifications were to be the
subject of her songs. Of the wicked it is said that
their houses are safe from fear, and that the rod of
God is not upon them : but the Saints have another
heritage than this.

Bega turned her footsteps eastward. By what
path she crossed the mountains, or whether she
skirted them by the lowlands lying between the
Solway and the hills, and so entered Northumber-
land by the romantic valleys of the Tyne, we are
not told. Probably while she tended some of the
sick poor she had heard of Oswald and the blessed
Aidan, whose names and good deeds would doubt-
less reach the opposite coast, notwithstanding the
thinness of the inhabitants and the infrequency of
communication. To St. Aidan, however, she bent
her steps. " To him," says the monk,1 " as to the
brideman of her Bridegroom, Bega the bride of
Christ, drawing near, disclosed every secret of her
soul, and those divine things that were wrought
about her ; and sought counsel from him after
what manner she might draw the bands of love
and obedience towards her heavenly Spouse more
tightly. The man of God, then, like an excellent
watchman on the walls of Jerusalem, seeing her
seeking and desiring to find her beloved, struck
her more deeply and wounded her with the dart of
divine love, and taking off the expallium of the
dress she had hitherto worn, clothed her with a
new garment of salvation. For the holy bishop,
according to the custom, blessed and consecrated
the holy and uncorrupt virgin as the spouse of

* P. 13.

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 329

Christ, and new bride of the Lamb. But he put
upon her head a veil for a royal diadem, and a
black garment for the purple robe, before which
the region of the Northumbrians had no nun, as
Bede the historian testifies.1 The Saint certainly
did well in this towards her, in order that she might
thereafter preserve that sanctity, under a solemn
vow, which she had hitherto kept by her own
deliberate resolve ; and that what she had taken
up to be maintained by her conduct in secret, she
might now show in public, even by her outward
dress. And the holy presul inflamed the virgin
lamp which shone before by itself, with the breath
of his holy exhortation, that it might shine more
and more, and become inextinguishable before the
coming of the Bridegroom, and administered to it
in prayer the fire of divine love, the oil of good
works, and the wick of pious devotion."

This was a great change in Bega's life. Deep
as had been her peace upon the wooded shores of
Copeland, she now enjoyed an inward peace which
was deeper far. Self-will is apt to mingle even with
the best of our deeds ; it not unfrequently mars
penance, heartily taken up and austerely carried
through. St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi said there
was more merit in bearing a sickness with con-
formity to God's will than in a life of self-imposed
austerities, and more consolation too, for in the one
case we know the will of God, and in the other we
cannot tell how far we may be self-willed : and if
ever she saw any of the novices, of whom she was

1 i.e. on the supposition that Bega is identical with Heru. Bede,
iv. 23.

330 ST. BEGA,

mistress, acquiring a love of prayer and seeming to
prefer it to obedience and the external offices of
the convent, she was accustomed to load them with
external offices beyond any others, in order to
mortify that dangerous self-will which was growing
up even with the love of prayer. There is no doubt
then that Bega was now in a much more advan-
tageous position. She was not left to regulate her-
self, to choose austerities and to take upon herself
the responsibility of a religious life. St. Aidan was
her bishop, and obedience to him was clearly the
will of God. No sooner was she clothed in her
black dress than she entered a haven of peace : she
was like a pilot resigning the helm to another now
that the mouth of the harbour is gained. For
obedience is like Eden; a place, if not of careless-
ness, yet of childlike security.

Surely that solitary virgin, of royal blood, with
her veiled head and long black robe, must have
been an edifying sight to the Northumbrians ; and
yet a strange one too, for she was the first nun seen
in the north of England ; and the very sight of her
among the half-taught people must have been as
impressive as one of St. Aidan's sermons. The
first nun was she in those goodly shires so soon to
be peopled with the spiritual children of St. Hilda.
If it be correct that her first nunnery was some-
where on the northern bank of the Wear, she did
not stay long there, and perhaps did not make any
establishment. We must follow her elsewhere.

In the beautiful bay of the Tees, when the sun
goes down behind the inland village of Hart, a
golden splendour lights up the northern promontory

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 331

of that crescent of bright waters. Less bold than
the shadowy cliffs of Yorkshire where the Cleve-
land hills run down into the sea, there is something
singularly striking in the Durham promontory,
running far out into the waves which make almost
incessant thunder among the fretted arches which
the tide has scooped out for itself. The town of
Hartlepool does not stand at quite the extremity
of the cape, but a space of green turf intervenes,
without a tree, between the sea and the church of
St. Hilda, whose low massy tower with its flying
buttresses may be seen far off. This peninsula, or
island as it was of old, went by the name of Heor-
theu or Hertesie, that is, the island of stags. And
this was the gift which Bega received from St.
Oswald. At that time probably the coast was
covered with dense forests, and trees grew where
the sea is now master. Any one walking from
Seaton Carew to Hartlepool at low tide may per-
ceive that the beach for a great distance is composed
of the roots of trees, and possibly the swampy
shallow, which, before the new harbour was com-
pleted, rendered the approach to Hartlepool so
wearisomely circuitous at high tide, may have
reached to the sea northward as well as southward,
and presenting no barrier to the stags may yet have
stayed the hunter, and so rendered that woody cape
a favourite haunt with those animals. But there
came one now to that secluded promontory whose
feet had been nimble as harts' feet to fly from the
danger of the impure pirates, and whose soul
longed after God even more than any hart had ever
desired the safe shelter of that forest.

332 ST. BEGA,

Behold then the blessed Bega at Hartlepool,
sicut cervus ad fontes aquarum ! How much there
would be to remind her of her beloved Copeland !
Here were no suns setting in the sea, and she who
had been accustomed to see the great orb sink
down in the Atlantic must now look westward
towards her ancient solitude, while the sun sets
over the inland ridge of Hart. But the cape of
Hartlepool was no solitude. By the aid of St.
Oswald, and under the counsel of St. Aidan, Bega
built a monastery, not perhaps such a lordly struc-
ture as Coldingham, but still a monastery of great
note. Let it be remembered that she was the first
nun Northumberland had ever seen. There were
worldly-wise people in those days as well as now,
and a very unpractical and hopeless thing in their
eyes would be the single woman in her black
serge. Yet so it was — and perhaps we may learn
something by it — Christians effect wonderful things
when their will is hearty and single. Bega built
a great monastery ; she built it within as well as
without ; she not only raised the house, but filled it
with nuns. Something was there so beautiful and
convincing in the evangelical character of a nun
that the new house of Hartlepool was not only
thronged with world-renouncing virgins, but it was
the cause of an outbreak of zeal and holy love, like
the zeal of "Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, one of
the sons of Elam," in the days of Ezra, who
proposed the putting away of strange wives ; for
Bega's biographer tells us that " not only many
virgins were brought after her to the Heavenly
King, invited and stirred up by her exhortation

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 333

and example, but also many converts, repenting
of their married state and secular conversation,
were offered in joy and exultation in the temple
to the Divine King, and subjected to His service.
So the bride of Christ, who languished for the love
of her Bridegroom, ardently wished to be supported
by flowers, to be surrounded by apple-trees."

They who among flowers and sweet rushes and
green boughs thread the passages and mount the
staircases of the Jesuits' College at Rome on the
feast of St. Aloysius, and see his poor bedroom
now converted into a gaily decorated chapel, and
the place crowded with Roman boys thinking of
him with love and honour for his wonderful
chastity, feel a strange pleasure in the contrast
when their eyes light upon a picture of the youth-
ful noble performing menial offices in the college
kitchen. The Irish princess affords us the same
example of a humility delighting in abject places
and occupations. While the nunnery of Hartle-
pool was building, she was too weak to labour
with her hands, but she made herself the slave
of the workmen. She cooked their provisions for
them, carried their dinners to them so that their
work might be as little interrupted as possible,
and, as the monk says, she was ever ministering
and running backwards and forwards, like a bee
laden with honey. At length the holy house was
finished, the workmen dismissed, the nuns come,
and Bega become an abbess in the Church of
Christ. But there was still work to be done, work
in which her old skill in broidery would help her.
The church was built, but there were frontals, cor-

334 ST- BEGA,

porals, curtains, copes, chasubles, and a hundred
things wanted in the way of decoration ; and ac-
cordingly the whole place was full of gentle nuns,
spinning, and weaving, and sewing, and copying
patterns, and yet the while silent and recollected,
their hearts stayed on God and occupied with the
sweets of celestial meditation. For notwithstanding
all this other work, and the wants and unsettledness
of a new monastery, "she urged them most fer-
vently to the keeping of fasts and watchings, to the
singing of hymns and psalms, and spiritual songs,
and to the study of holy reading ; so that she was
the admiration of the whole congregation. But
among the other gifts of virtue with which the
Divine Grace had endowed her, she exceeded in
humility beyond the standard of nature and human
habit. Thus she did Martha's work that she might
not neglect Mary's holy rest, nor, on the other
hand, contemn a necessary service on account of
Mary's sabbath. And because she was accepted
by God and man, she enlarged her monastery with
possessions given by princes ; to wit, first, by St.
Oswald, and afterwards by St. Oswin, the future
martyr."

It would have been interesting to know what
kind of a rule St. Aidan gave to this first North-
umbrian nunnery, how far it was his own drawing
up, or how far copied from rules already existing,
or how far modified by the suggestions of the
blessed abbess herself. We should wish to know
whether strict cloister was prescribed, or whether
the nuns were occupied in works of mercy out-
side their walls, and whether there was any con-

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 335

ventual hospitality connected with the peculiarly
safe and inviting anchorage of the bay, so greatly
needed along that bleak and repulsive coast, and
which one wild night so often fills with shipping
even in the present days of improved navigation.
However there were doubtless the offices of the
Church, and mental prayer, and examinations of
conscience, and humiliations in chapter, and a
covetousness of chastity, and a love of Christlike
poverty, and a prompt self-abasing obedience :
and a blessed thing, surely a very blessed thing it
was for the rough-mannered Northumbrians to
have such a heaven on earth amongst them, as
that community of gentle women, a beacon on the
rocks of that sea-fretted promontory, whose far-
off light it was very pleasant to look back upon,
knowing it was the first light of the kind which
had shone among the people of those various and
beautiful shires of the north.

Meanwhile Christian things were growing among
the Northumbrians ; and greatly gladdened, no
doubt, was the heart of good St. Aidan, and a
cause of very unenvious joy was it to the abbess
of Hartlepool. There came another holy woman
into the diocese of Lindisfarne, by the bishop's
invitation ; and he gave her a site somewhere on
the banks of the woodland Wear, with its thin
streams and broad beds of gravel. Perhaps it
might be close to Wearmouth, for Sunderland
church was dedicated to St. Hilda, and St. Hilda
was the stranger freshly come among the North-
umbrians to emulate the example of Bega.

Meanwhile Bega grew a little discontented with

336 ST. BEGA,

her position ; for there are circumstances in which
even saints do not fear to want resignation, or at
least to do their best to effect a change, and their
example in this respect is not likely to be per-
nicious to the world at large. What saints find
it hard to submit to is a position which seems to
distract them from the single thought of God and
love of their heavenly Spouse. They are not back-
ward to sacrifice the joys of secret contemplation,
the raptures of prayer, the delights of the cloister,
where the needs of the faith or the welfare of their
neighbours call them to serve God in another way.
Even Mary went out in haste when once she had
ascertained her Lord's call. But when their pre-
sent circumstances involve them in cares wholly
or partially secular, and attach them too much
to the creature when they would be entirely
devoted to the service of the Creator, when the
perfection which they covet seems to recede from
them, holy persons have felt such a yearning after
heavenly things that they have considered it an
imperative duty to divest themselves of offices and
responsibilities which seem to drag their souls
earthwards. How inconsistent is all this ! a man
of the world will say ; what guarantee is there
that these restless saints are not after all wor-
shipping self-will, which it is the primary object of
a monk or nun to renounce ? How can they be
sure of it themselves ? Are not these vagaries of
the old abbesses just what we see among unsettled
but well-meaning religious women of our own
times ? To this we may answer, Certainly not :
for the Catholic system is a whole, and one part

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 337

succours the other, or is the complement of the
other. Under it there were then, and there are
to-day for such as are blessed enough to live under
it, such things as discipline, superiors, obedience,
confessors, spiritual directors, the obligation of
vows, limited and strictly denned dispensing powers,
and so forth, — very uncouth and harsh-sounding
words to modern ears, menacing and despotic
things which Lutheran laxity and Protestant free-
dom and the pewholders of popular chapels will
find it very difficult to live under. Indeed the
monastic system altogether is to heresy very much
what an exhausted receiver would be to any luck-
less animal whom the cruel philanthropy of science
thought it needful to imprison therein. Nuns
were not the patronesses of their bishops and con-
fessors, nor the self-appointed judges of their
doctrines, nor the loquacious admirers of their
sermons, but very humble, sad, downcast sort of
people who never imagined they had a word to
say for themselves when they received an over-
harsh reproof or a disagreeable order. At least
good nuns, true nuns, were such as this ; and
perhaps enough has been said to make it clear
that Bega was a very pattern of nuns.

But what was Bega's grievance ? Alas ! a very
subtle and refined one, many people will think.
However, imaginary and wilful conceit or not,
what troubled Bega was this : — she admired, as
her biographer most aptly words it, to see how
when she had gone through so much to put off
the world, behold ! she had now put it on again
very unexpectedly in the shape of a Christian

VOL. IV. Y

338 ST. BEGA,

abbacy. In other words St. Bega came to think
that Church preferment was only the world in
sheep's clothing. Whatever comes of this doctrine,
in holding which the abbess of Hartlepool has
been by no means singular, she did her best to
get out of the snare in a lawful way. There must
be abbesses, there must be bishops, and in fact
prelates of all sorts ; the Church could not get on
without them. It cannot be supposed but that
this objection would present itself to Bega's mind ;
but she would probably dispose of it by a truism
equally obvious, that there would always be plenty
of persons, and good persons too, who would
be ready to accept prelacies, and to fill them
edifyingly. Yet for all that there may be higher
offices in the Church than visible prelacies, and
higher hearts to be called to them. Bega felt her
dignity and power both dangerous and distressing :
how was she to exercise absolute control over
many nuns, who thought herself less than the
least, and the chief of sinners ? how was she to
endure marks of homage and respect, the highest
place in chapter, and a special stall in the choir,
when she pined to be abject and dishonoured as
Christ was ?.how was she, with a mother's charity,
to see that the cellarer provided for the bodily
necessities of her community, when she craved
after the poverty of Christ ? how was she to im-
pose penances on the erring, when her whole
nature shrank from it ? Her self-abasement was
too great, too perfect, too heavenly, to allow her
to be fit to fill high places, and exercise authority.
No, says her faithful monk, " she, who washedi

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 339

her feet from all the dust of earthly ministration,
was troubled within herself, because she thought
she had as it were again defiled them under the
cares of her office. For she remembered the
voice of that turtle that she used to hear in her
own country, that light whispering that she felt
breathing in the interior of her cell, and saying,
Who will give me to be as I was in former times,
when God was secretly in my tabernacle, when I
was intoxicated with the plenty of His House,
and He gave me to drink of the torrent of His
pleasure ? While she frequently turned these
things over in her mind, her spirit was troubled
within her, because, considering how to relinquish
every external business and all the ministry of
Martha, and choosing Mary's best part which
shall not be taken away, the renunciation of the
government of the monastery which she had built,
without any retractation, sat upon her mind."

Abbots and bishops seeking to lay down their
crosiers and mitres to copy the humility and low
estate of Christ, and popes grudging the dispensa-
tion lest the Church should suffer loss through
lack of these good men's services, and the abbots
and the bishops growing urgent and almost
clamorous, and the popes loving them the more
for their want of prompt submission in such a
matter, and at length wisely dreading to interfere
with a divine vocation, and reluctantly giving way
—this is an edifying contest which has been many
times renewed in every age of the Catholic Church.
Indeed it is almost one of those few characteristics
which give a tangible unity to the lives of the

340 ST. BEGA,

Saints amid their astonishing diversity. The like
contest now took place between Bega and St.
Aidan. The bishop refused to give her a dis-
pensation, or to allow her abdication. His re-
luctance was most natural ; for though Bega in
her own estimation was the chief of sinners, to
others she was a manifest vessel of God's election.
Such a beginning would not promise well for
Northumbrian nunneries, yet after all what could
promise better ? But Bega's importunity was in
the end more than a match for the bishop's re-
luctance. She gave him no rest ; the historian
distinctly states that, not content with seasonable
requests, she was unseasonably urgent about it
— instans inopportune — so strongly was she bent
upon it. At length St. Aidan gave way, and Bega
laid down her dignity to her own infinite content-
ment and exceeding joy.

Most inconsistent Saint ! She loved her nuns
quite as well as her own soul. She procures the
stranger from the banks of the Wear, the blessed
Hilda, to be unanimously elected abbess, her
election to be more than willingly confirmed by
St. Aidan ; and St. Hilda resolutely refusing the
proffered dignity, Bega forces it upon her with
most earnest supplications, as though her accept-
ance of it would make her conscience more than
easy about her resignation and the welfare of
the spiritual children whom she had gathered
together. "The altercation between these friends
of God," says the chronicler, " was sufficiently
humble and friendly, seeing that each preferred
the life of the other to her own ; nor was there

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 341

less strife between them about not receiving pre-
ferment than is wont to arise among the ambitious,
infected with the poison of simoniacal heresy, about
obtaining advancement. Yet the humility of Bega
in this part was victorious, and Hilda's obedience,
although unwilling, still submitted to be conquered."
Hartlepool certainly witnessed strange scenes in
that seventh century ; the picturesque peninsula,
the green turf glistening with the eyes of wild
thyme which the salt spray spares, the broad sunny
bay, the many-chambered rocks resonant for ever
with the sea's innocuous thunder, the white climb-
ing columns of angry foam which the children watch
so long and so delightedly, these are all still there ;
but the nunnery is gone, and St. Bega is gone,
and St. Hilda, and the gentle community, and the
matins and the diurnal hours, and the mental
prayer, and the examinations of conscience, and
the humiliations in chapter, and all the holy and
beautiful theology of monastic vows ; these are
gone, and much more is gone with them, which
would be a blessing to Hartlepool, even though
it does not miss them, for there are stages when
disease has gone so far that the patients do not
dream they are so near being incurable. Such
was Hartlepool in the seventh century ; the bustling
port, the new harbour, the railway, the growing
town enlarging itself to meet its novel position,
are doubtless things of Christian import and
furnish grave questions for the Church to solve.
Certainly opening our eyes to the merits of the
past ought to do anything but blind us to the real
advantages of the present, yet there is a Christian

342 ST. BEGA,

admonition too in getting ourselves to imagine
Hartlepool as it was when the stags were but
half dispossessed, and the first nun of the north
was the croziered queen of that fair peninsula.

The endowments of the Saints are very various.
The gifts requisite for founding a monastery and
sheltering it in its feeble beginnings are quite
different from those required for the government
of an established and thoroughly furnished com-
munity. They are of a much rarer kind ; and
it would appear, from many instances, that where
they have been given God does not suffer the
possessors of them to rest. They are, as it were;
driven forth and driven forth perpetually to make
new beginnings, and so fulfil their functions in
the Church. An active yet very settled disposition
forbearing patience, power of influencing others
a quickness, almost inventive, to detect ways anc
means, an aptness to use them, a dexterity in
converting seeming obstacles into real succours
a calm foresight and a very gentle determination
— these seem on the whole the qualities requirec
in a founder. St. Theresa, for example had 2
singular talent that way, which may be discernec
even through the modest concealments of hei
autobiography, and her accounts of her sixteer
chief foundations, written in obedience to the
orders of her confessors, Francis Garcia of Toledo
the Dominican, and father Ripaldi, the Jesuit
Thus also we read of St. David before he settlec
at Ross, that he "went about preaching and found-
ing monasteries," which seems a strange methoc
of expression at first sight, and of St. Lugid we

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 343

read that he founded a hundred monasteries. So
in like manner was Bega driven forth, from Cope-
land by the pirates, from Hartlepool by her own
humility and thirst for perfection, from both places
doubtless by God's vocation. So long as there
were the obstacles, perplexities, and anxieties of
a new foundation to cope with, so long Bega
found no danger or distress in being foremost.
It was no more than the privilege of labouring
and suffering above others. But when quietness
brought dignity, honour, and power, her lowliness
took the alarm. Her subsequent history is very
obscure, obscure as the holy abbess would have
wished it to be, when she bade Hilda farewell,
and left her hard-won promontory behind. But
it seems not improbable that she too had the gift
of making foundations. Beal, or Beag Hall, near
Pomfret, is supposed by some to have been one
of her foundations ; l and her name is connected
with three other places in Yorkshire, viz., Tadcaster,
Newton Kyme, and Aberford. However it seems
agreed, on the whole, though not without dissen-
tient voices, that when she left Hartlepool she
went to Calcaria, and further that Calcaria is
Tadcaster, a town nine miles south of York, and
near the river Wharfe. At Tadcaster she "built
herself a mansion, and led a life of great perfection
there for a long time." But it does not appear
whether the mansion for herself was a monastery,
or simply a hermitage ; but one would infer from
the mention of her great perfection, and from her

1 Mr, Tomlinson states that there is no evidence of this, p. 17.

344 ST- BEGA,

having resigned the government of Hartlepool
because it stood in the way of her perfection, that
her life at Tadcaster was that of a hermit. What
interior trials she suffered; what heights she
climbed, and to what a union with God the
blessed virgin now attained, is unknown to any
but the Spirit who led her as He pleased along
the paths of perfection, and in a measure possibly
to her Guardian Angel. Enough for us that she
lives to intercede with our Intercessor for the
Church of those parts which she illustrated by
her sanctity.

One pleasure there was which Bega did not think
it well to deny herself : a visit, said to have been
annual,1 to her successor St. Hilda, then abbess of
the famous monastery of Whitby. During the
seven years of St. Hilda's weary sickness the monk
says that Bega " visited her frequently and dwelt a
long time with her." This looks as if either the
visit had never been a formal yearly courtesy, or at
least very naturally ceased to be so when it pleased
God to subject St. Hilda to such long and acute
sufferings. Evident it is that there was a most dear
and holy friendship between those great Saints,
such as would not steal the hearts of either from
their heavenly Spouse, but would spur the emulous
feet of both in the way of perfection.

St. Hilda in the last year of her life founded a
nunnery at Hackness ; thither St. Bega came, on a
visit to the nuns, a few days before St. Hilda's
death. The abbess was not at Hackness herself,

1 See No, iv. of this work.

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 345

but, as it would appear, at Whitby, and had left a
nun named Freitha to govern the new community
for the time. Hackness, it must be remembered,
is thirteen miles from Whitby. Now one night
about cock-crowing, that is, before matins, Bega
was lying in the dormitory at Hackness. Sud-
denly she heard in the spirit the great bell of
Whitby convent, which was tolled to call the com-
munity together when any of them was dead ; and
above she beheld an immense light pouring down
from heaven, and filling every part of the building,
the roof of which seemed to be entirely taken away,
and amid the intolerable blaze she discerned what
she was given to understand was the soul of St.
Hilda, borne by angels into heaven, and overpass-
ing the realms of purgatory. When she came to
herself, Bega, uncertain whether she had dreamed
a dream or seen a vision, felt inwardly sure that
God had taken St. Hilda to herself. Half in sorrow,
half in fear, she awakened Freitha, and the whole
community rose up, and for the rest of the night
sang psalms and said prayers for the repose of their
blessed mother's soul. In the morning some of
the monks came from Whitby to acquaint them
with the decease of the abbess, which took place
at the very hour when it had been revealed to
Bega.

In its outward circumstances this holy legend
looks at first sight like a modern ghost story. Of
course it is really a very different thing, if for no
other reason, at least for this, that the two persons
concerned were blessed Saints of the holy church.
But the legend is interesting for another reason,

346 ST. BEGA,

and on such a subject-matter by interesting is
meant edifying. If by observant classification im-
portant laws are come at in human sciences, per-
haps by a reverent and minute attention to all that
is preternatural in the lives of the Saints a serious
man might come to learn a great deal that was
very solemn indeed, and which would serve for
the illustration of many principles of ascetic and
still more of mystic theology handed down by the
anchorets and monks and spiritual masters of the
Church. So far as many actions are concerned,
which seem to the world as if reversing right and
wrong, there is most undeniably a singular uni-
formity visible in the endless variety of the lives of
the Saints ; and it may be that there is a similar
uniformity in the preternatural visions, revelations,
and the like, which are so seemingly various in
sacred histories ; and if it be so it must be ex-
tremely instructive, though it demands a most re-
verential study as remembering Whose dealings
they are which we are venturing to gaze upon.
Now there has been hardly any kind of visions, so
obviously making a class, as the visions of dis-
embodied spirits either at the moment of departure
or issuing out of purgatory ; and this revelation
made to St. Bega of her friend's decease, having
been shared by so many other Saints both ancient
and modern, is more interesting than if it were
some distinctive favour granted to herself only.
Thus St. Kentigern saw the angels carrying up to
heaven the soul of the great St. David at the very
hour of his death ; St. Benedict saw the soul of St.
Scholastica his sister pass upwards like a dove,

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 347

and though his own soul was not seen, yet the
luminous track by which it ascended was visible to
some of his monks; and when those who revere
the primitive ages of the Church feel backward to
admit the many stories told of St. Theresa and St.
Mary Magdalene of Pazzi seeing souls liberated
from purgatory, they should remember how St.
Perpetua early in the third century saw the soul of
her little brother Dinocrates issuing purified from
an intermediate place of darkness, when she inter-
ceded for him in prison after her first glorious
confession. Perhaps it may incline some readers
to think more worthily of what is here but an
obscure English legend, resting on evidence not
particularly clear, if we go a little out of our way,
and put side by side with it a story, strikingly
similar in all points, told of no less a Saint than St.
Benedict and by no less a doctor than St. Gregory
the Great, whose memory may well be blessed
among Englishmen.

Among the early Benedictine monasteries was
that of St. Sebastian in Campania ; Mabillon calls
it thirty miles from Monte Cassino. The abbot of
this monastery, Servandus, a deacon, was an in-
timate friend of St. Benedict, and St. Gregory tells
us they used often to meet to hold spiritual con-
ferences and thus to give each other the sweet food
of the heavenly country in pious discourses. One
night after they had separated, St. Benedict re-
mained in the upper part of the tower in which he
generally dwelt, and Servandus went to rest at the
bottom, there being a staircase communicating
between the two apartments. It was not yet time

348 ST. BEGA,

for matins, but Benedict was one whose eyes full
open prevented the night-watches. He was stand-
ing at his window, possibly that the chill night-air
might dispel his drowsiness, and there he prayed
to God. It was a calm night, and suddenly a great
light was poured down from heaven, which absorbed
all the darkness, till the night became even more
radiant than the natural day. It seemed to St.
Benedict that the whole world was so collected
under that light and illumined by it, that he saw
it all at one simultaneous glance, like our blessed
Lord's vision from the top of Quarentana. While
the Saint stood gazing on this vision he saw a fiery
sphere traversing the brightness, and ascending up
to heaven. It was borne by angels, and in it St.
Benedict discerned what he recognised to be the
soul of Germanus, Bishop of Capua. We say recog-
nised, as the nearest word to express the meaning,
remembering the recognition of Moses and Elias by
St. Peter, which w 'as perhaps not miraculous but ac-
cording to some laws of the spiritual world of which
we know nothing. St. Benedict immediately called
Servandus to ascend the tower, that he might be a
witness of the revelation. Servandus, either arriv-
ing as the vision was fading or seeing as much with
his bodily eye as the inward illumination of his
soul allowed, 'beheld some small portion of the
exceeding brightness. Forthwith St. Benedict de-
spatched some one from the neighbouring town to
the city of Capua, where he learned that the holy
Germanus had departed to a better life at the very
hour at which the Saint had been favoured with
the vision. And are not all holy men the servants

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 349

of Him who spake in old time by vision unto His
Saints ?

After the death of St. Hilda Bega returned no
more to Tadcaster ; but abode in the nunnery of
Hackness. At her friend's death, whom she did
not long survive, she had led a monastic life for
more than thirty years ; and it may have been
some presentiment or foreknowledge of her own
coming departure which induced her to remain
among St. Hilda's children at Hackness. She
entered into her rest on the 3ist of October : her
biographer says, " Aptly enough, while she was
observing the Vigil of All Saints she quitted the
world to join their society, that, winter coming
upon the earth, all winter might pass away from
her, leaving it ; and the rain might cease and
depart, that eternal spring might shine upon her,
and the bloom of roses and the lilies of the valley
might appear to her in heaven."

After this the Danes came down like a flood
upon the land, and the relics no less than the
records of many of the Saints were lost, and their
holy houses burnt and plundered, and the Church
had much ado, not without miraculous helps, to
retrieve what she did retrieve when something like
peaceful times came back to her. The very local
features of the ancient sanctity were worn out
from the face of the land, and in many places
irrecoverably obliterated. A very awful judgment
it was, and it was truly wonderful how well the
Church recovered from it. Amidst the confusion
all tradition of St. Bega's burial was lost ; the quiet
houses which St. Hilda planted were overwhelmed

350 ST. BEGA,

by the marauding bands, and became miserable
desolations instead of goodly homes perpetually
vocal with divine psalmody. "The precious pearl
lay hid in the heart of the earth," so the monk
speaks of St. Bega's body ; and so time went on
till the twelfth century, somewhere about 460 years
after her death, and then it was revealed to some
holy men, probably devoted to the memory of the
Saint, that she lay buried in the cemetery at
Hackness. Supposing the veneration shown by
the Catholic Church for the Saints, and the honours
paid to their relics, to be, as dogmatic writers
teach, a necessary growth of the doctrine of the
Incarnation, these discoveries of particular relics
at particular times may all have been providentially
ordered so as to meet certain emergencies in the
Church, and to reinforce her life and vigour at a
given season. The holy men were not disobedient
to the admonition ; they repaired to the cemetery
at Hackness, and after much digging they found a
sarcophagus on the lid of which were the words,
" Hoc est sepulchrum Begu." On removing the
lid a small clod (gleda) of her body was found,
and a veil upon her head hardly corrupted at all ;
and a sweet odour breathed from her relics,
which were transported to the monastery in
solemn procession.

The Cell or Priory of St. Bega on the headland
which bears her name on the Cumbrian coast was
built in the reign of Henry the First, and a monk
named Robert was the first prior. Many miracles
were wrought at her intercession in the country
round about ; and to swear on the bracelet of St.

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 351

Bega was the most solemn of all oaths, which few
durst break, for many and well authenticated were
the instances in which immediate and signal ven-
geance had fallen upon the offenders. The brace-
let appears to have been found by the people after
her precipitate flight. It would be cherished first
as an affecting memorial of a benefactress, and then
held in reverence as the authentic relic of a Saint.
There are many interesting traces of the \vay in
which this mysterious bracelet acted as something
humanising in that wild district, and stood in the
stead of law during times in which law's voice,
however majestic, was too calm to be heard. It
would be beyond the scope of this memoir to give
a detailed account of these miracles, resting as they
do on very slight evidence, and all tending one
way, namely, to show how the devotion to St. Bega
was, independent of higher ends to separate souls,
a great power of civilisation in the region where
she had dedicated herself to God in a solitary and
virgin life. One miracle, however, may be related,
not as resting on better evidence than the others,
but partly as having a singular poetical beauty, and
partly as being a thing not at all unlikely to happen
(though there is no proof that it did happen in this
case) in rude times when the quiet hand of social
order could not make itself felt, and the monuments
of ancient piety were likely to be lost amid the
covetous knights and rough-handed barons, who
looked with jaundiced eye on the fair fields and
good broad lands which had been severed from
their patrimony and given to the Church by their
more devout ancestors.

3S2 ST. BEGA,

The story runs thus. Ranulph Meschines was a
very great man in Copeland, and at one time a very
good man, which is not often the case with great
men. He had a special devotion to St. Bega, as
was natural for a Copeland man ; and he thought
it very wrong the Saint should have no shrine in
those parts where she had led such a marvellous
and holy life. But Ranulph did not content himself
with thinking about the matter. There was a much
shorter interval between word and deed then than
there unhappily is in our days. Ranulph started
off to York, — he could not go to a better place ; —
there he went to the monastery of our Blessed
Lady : whose monks so fit as St. Mary's to serve
a Saint like Bega, a virgin too herself of royal line-
age ? there he asked for some monks and got them.
He carried his prize into Copeland ; the goodly
town of Kirkby stood on or near the site of Bega's
hermitage, and luckily it was his own town, houses,
people and all, and he gave it with sundry lands to
God and St. Mary, and built a cell in honour of St.
Bega, and the place was called Kirkby Begog, now
St. Bees. Afterwards Ranulph wished he had
waited a little longer, and he began to open his
ears to what worldly people said about the holy
friars, and to think that monks were very useless
people, and he had not even the consolation of
knowing what a great many people would be of
his opinion in times to come. However, Ranulph
wished he had his lands back again : the oftener
he looked on the goodly crops in the monks' fields,
probably much better cultivated than his own, the
more Protestant he grew. As was said before, in

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 353

those days men acted upon their thoughts with a
rapidity unknown at present : he had made a mis-
take certainly in bringing these monks into Cope-
land ; the next best thing was to starve them out.
Ranulph was assuredly, as modern historians speak,
in advance of his age ; he anticipated exactly (for
there is a striking uniformity in wickedness irre-
spective of centuries) the line of conduct which
Henry the Eighth adopted, only Ranulph was not
a king, so he could not hang the prior of St. Bees.
Like Henry, Ranulph wished to have the lands of
the Church, and yet to be quite orthodox ; so he
was obliged, as it would have been very unseemly
then to have laid violent hands on the monks, to
descend to the more commonplace remedy of a
lawsuit, which must have been both tedious and
mortifying to a strong-handed man like Ranulph.
Still monks were the order of the day then, so
nothing else would do. After many delays, which
no doubt teased the poor monks as well as chafed
Ranulph, the lawyers fixed a day for the final and
peremptory decision, and summoned the country-
people to be eye-witnesses of the settling of the
boundaries, so that it might become a matter of
notoriety, and not be called in question again.
Ranulph did not want the church or the conven-
tual precinct : they would be awkward property to
a man of his turn of mind ; he would be content
with the lands. The unhappy monks, frightened by
Ranulph and bewildered by law, thought the best
thing they could do was to invocate St. Bega, i.e. to
put their trust in God, for which the other was only
a roundabout method of expression, which the
VOL. iv. z

354 ST- BEGA,

reader may or may not approve. Well — the day
came, and the monks, and the lawyers, and the
country -people, and Ranulph too. Doubtless
nobody stayed at home in Copeland but those
who were too old or too young to leave ; and per-
haps we should not be mistaken in divining that
the sympathies of the rustics were all with the
monks, for it was only the love of the poor, igno-
rant, uneducated, superstitious people, which kept
monks uppermost so long. Now, if Bega was to
appear to settle the question herself, in what pos-
sible form could she come better or more aptly or
with more unmistakable figure, virgin as she was,
than in whitest, chastest snow ? l Nobody could
doubt what that meant : and so it was : down came
a most sudden and unlooked-for fall of whitest
snow — mountains and tree-tops, house-roofs and
seashore, all through Copeland were covered with
dazzling snow — but every rood which the monks
claimed was most accurately marked out : not a
flake fell thereon : all Copeland was white, and the
sea was blue, and the monks' lands, like a coloured
province in a map, all of radiant green. Thus
there could be no question but that Bega had
herself put a most summary stop to the lawsuit ;
the monks thought, for they tell us so, of Gideon's
fleece ; the rustics were convinced ; the lawyers
did not, perhaps durst not, say they were not ; and
it was plain the less Ranulph said the better, for he
was not in a particularly pleasant or dignified posi-
tion. This story is interesting as showing a some-

1 The reader may remember the beautiful tradition of the Basilica
of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, otherwise St. Mary ad Nives.

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 355

what strange relation between a convent and its
" pious founder " ; l it may be hoped such relative
positions were not common in those days. It is
certainly in that point of view a very ugly story.

It has already been mentioned that on the head-
land of St. Bees there is still a school of Christian
doctrine, something like a local connection, a frail
yet unbroken tradition, between old times and our
own. And it is said 2 that at this day the inhabi-
tants of the neighbouring villages resort to the
Church of St. Bees at Easter for the purpose of
communicating, and that from a considerable dist-
ance, insomuch that the village is quite crowded,
and the clergy are obliged to have an early Com-
munion in addition to the one which follows
morning prayers. There is something very, very
mournful in the way in which we are driven to
cherish even such poor acknowledgments of love
for the Catholic Past.

By the kind permission of the author we are
allowed to reprint entire Mr. Wordsworth's beauti-
ful stanzas on St. Bees, written, be it observed, so
long ago as 1833. The date is noticed as giving a
fresh instance of the remarkable way in which his
poems did in divers places anticipate the revival
of Catholic doctrines among us. When any one
considers the tone of sneering which was almost

1 Nicholson and Burns make William Meschines, Ranulph's
brother, the founder or restorer (if the Danes had destroyed a pre-
vious cell) of St. Bees.

2 By Mr. Tomlinson, note, p. 80.

356 ST. BEGA

universal in English authors when treating of a
religious past with which they did not sympathise,
the tone of these verses is very striking indeed, the
more striking since Mr. Wordsworth's works prove
him to be very little in sympathy with Roman
doctrine on the whole. Yet the affectionate rever-
ence for the Catholic past, the humble conscious-
ness of a loss sustained by ourselves, the readiness
to put a good construction on what he cannot
wholly receive, are in this poem in very edifying
contrast with even the half-irreverent sportiveness
of Mr. Southey's pen when employed on similar
subject-matters. The poet, it may be observed,
assumes on the authority of county historians a
Cell of St. Bega destroyed by the Danes, and so
traces the history of the sacred headland down to
the modern college. The reader, acquainted with
Mr. Words\vorth's poems, will find an alteration in
the last stanza ; it has been printed as it is here
given at the request of the author himself.

STANZA

SUGGESTED IN A STEAMBOAT OFF ST. BEE'S HEADS,
ON THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND.

IF Life were slumber on a bed of down,
Toil unimposed, vicissitude unknown,
Sad were our lot : no hunter of the hare
Exults like him whose javelin from the lair
Has roused the lion ; no one plucks the rose,
Whose proffered beauty in safe shelter blows
'Mid a trim garden's summer luxuries,
With joy like his who climbs, on hands and knees,
For some rare plant, yon Headland of St. Bees.

This independence upon oar and sail,
This new indifference to breeze or gale,
This straight-lined progress, furrowing a flat lea,
And regular as if locked in certainty —
Depress the hours. Up, Spirit of the storm !
That Courage may find something to perform ;
That Fortitude, whose blood disdains to freeze
At Danger's bidding, may confront the seas,
Firm as the towering Headlands of St. Bees.

Dread cliff of Baruth ! that wild wish may sleep,
Bold as if men and creatures of the Deep
Breathed the same element ; too many wrecks
Have struck thy sides, too many ghastly decks
Hast thou looked down upon, that such a thought
Should here be welcome, and in verse enwrought :
With thy stern aspect better far agrees
Utterance of thanks that we have passed with ease,
As millions thus shall do, the Headlands of St. Bees,

357

358 ST. BEGA,

Yet, while each useful Art augments her store,

What boots the gain if Nature should lose more ?

And Wisdom, that once held a Christian place

In man's intelligence sublimed by grace ?

When Bega sought of yore the Cumbrian coast,

Tempestuous winds her holy errand crossed :

She knelt in prayer — the waves their wrath appease ;

And, from her vow well weighed in Heaven's decrees,

Rose, where she touched the strand, the Chantry of St. Bees.

" Cruel of heart were they, bloody of hand,"

Who in these Wilds then struggled for command ;

The strong were merciless, without hope the weak ;

Till this bright Stranger came, fair as daybreak,

And as a cresset true that darts its length

Of beamy lustre from a tower of strength ;

Guiding the mariner through troubled seas,

And cheering oft his peaceful reveries,

Like the fixed Light that crowns yon Headland of St. Bees.

To aid the Votaress, miracles believed

Wrought in men's minds, like miracles achieved ;

So piety took root ; and Song might tell

What humanising virtues near her cell

Sprang up, and spread their fragrance wide around ;

How savage bosoms melted at the sound

Of gospel-truth enchained in harmonies

Wafted o'er waves, or creeping through close trees,

From her religious Mansion of St. Bees.

When her sweet Voice, that instrument of love,

Was glorified, and took its place, above

The silent stars, among the angelic quire,

Her chantry blazed with sacrilegious fire,

And perished utterly ; but her good deeds

Had sown the spot that witnessed them, with seeds

Which lay in earth expectant, till a breeze

With quickening impulse answered their mute pleas,

And lo ! a statelier pile, the Abbey of St, Bees.

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 359

There are the naked clothed, the hungry fed ;

And Charity extendeth to the dead

Her intercessions made for the soul's rest

Of tardy penitents ; or for the best

Among the good (when love might else have slept,

Sickened, or died) in pious memory kept.

Thanks to the austere and simple Devotees,

Who, to that service bound by venial fees,

Keep watch before the altars of St. Bees.

Are not, in sooth, their requiems sacred ties

Woven out of passion's sharpest agonies,

Subdued, composed, and formalised by art,

To fix a wiser sorrow in the heart ?

The prayer for them whose hour is passed away

Says to the Living, profit while ye may !

A little part, and that the worst, he sees

Who thinks that priestly cunning holds the keys

That best unlock the secrets of St. Bees.

Conscience, the timid being's inmost light,
Hope of the dawn and solace of the night,
Cheers these Recluses with a steady ray
In many an hour when judgment goes astray.
Ah ! scorn not hastily their rule who try
Earth to despise, and flesh to mortify ;
Consume with zeal, in winged ecstasies
Of prayer and praise forget their rosaries,
Nor hear the loudest surges of St. Bees.

Yet none so prompt to succour and protect
The forlorn traveller, or sailor wrecked
On the bare coast ; nor do they grudge the boon
Which staff and cockle-hat and sandal shoon
Claim for the pilgrim : and, though chidings sharp
May sometimes greet the strolling minstrel's harp,
It is not then when, swept with sportive ease,
It charms a feast-day throng of all degrees,
Brightening the archway of revered St. Bees.

360 ST. BEGA,

How did the cliffs and echoing hills rejoice
What time the Benedictine Brethren's voice,
Imploring or commanding with meet pride,
Summoned the chiefs to lay their feuds aside,
And under one blest ensign serve the Lord
In Palestine. Advance, indignant Sword !
Flaming till thou from Panym hands release
That Tomb, dread centre of all sanctities
Nursed in the quiet Abbey of St. Bees.

But look we now to them whose minds from far
Follow the fortunes which they may not share.
While in Judea Fancy loves to roam,
She helps to make a Holy-land at home :
The Star of Bethlehem from its sphere invites
To sound the crystal depth of maiden rights ;
And wedded life, through Scriptural mysteries,
Heavenward ascends with all her charities,
Taught by the hooded Celibates of St. Bees.

Who with the ploughshare clove the barren moors,
And to green meadows changed the swampy shores ?
Thinned the rank woods ; and for the cheerful grange
Made room where wolf and boar were used to range ?
Who taught, and showed by deeds, that gentler chains
Should bind the vassal to his lord's domains ?
The thoughtful Monks, intent their God to please,
For Christ's dear sake, by human sympathies
Poured from the bosom of thy Church, St. Bees !

But all availed not ; by a mandate given

Through lawless will the Brotherhood was driven

Forth from their cells ; their ancient House laid low

In Reformation's sweeping overthrow.

But now once more the local Heart revives,

The inextinguishable Spirit strives.

Oh may that Power who hushed the stormy seas,

And cleared a way for the first votaries,

Prosper the new-born College of St. Bees !

VIRGIN AND ABBESS 361

Alas ! the Genius of our age, from Schools

Less humble, draws her lessons, aims, and rules ;

Would merge, Idolatress of formal skill,

In her own systems God's Eternal Will.

To Her despising faith in things unseen

Matter and Spirit are as one Machine.

Better, if Reason's triumphs match with these,

Her flight before the bold credulities

That furthered the first teaching of St. Bees.

1833-

LIFE OF
ST. WILLIAM

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, A.D.

• • '•

LIFE OF
ST. WILLIAM

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, A.D. 1140-1154

CHAPTER I

ST. WILLIAM IN PROSPERITY

ST. WILLIAM was the son of Lord Herbert, by
Emma of Blois, sister to Stephen, King of England,
and was born about the latter end of the eleventh
century. Little is known of the early part of his
life ; and he must have been somewhat advanced in
years before he entered upon the field of public
action. More than ordinary care seems to have
been paid to his education : his parents were not
forgetful of the many dangers which beset the path
of boyhood ; for when he was quite young, they
committed him to the charge of a preceptor, under
whose care he made great progress in general
literature and the studies of the times. Nor was he
remarkable only for his learning. There were in
his character the elements and ground-work of

what he was to be. hereafter. Great purity and

365

366 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

integrity of life, exceeding beneficence to the poor,
together with a kind and amiable disposition, formed
the soil in which the seeds of the saintly character
were to be sown, which, as we shall see in the
sequel, took deep root, and in the end brought forth
fruit unto perfection.

But this perfection came not without difficulty
and reverses. God's ways for fashioning and mould-
ing His saints are manifold : some He leads on and
on in holy innocence even from the waters of the
Font, and suffers them not to be led astray, nor
their baptismal robe to be spotted by the taints of
sin ; others He tries by affliction, others by the
fierce assaults of Satan, and the powers of evil,
while others He exposes to the vanities and allure-
ments of the world. He sets them in high places ;
He gives them riches ; He allows them to be courted
and honoured, and then by some sudden reverse,
by the failure of long cherished hopes or plans, He
makes them see the utter nothingness of the world.
They wake as from a dream, and to their astonish-
ment find they have been feeding upon vanities, and
that the only reality is the Cross : and thus even
these are led onwards to perfection, and in the end
become the chosen ones of God. They do indeed
bring forth the fruit of saintliness, although for a
while the good seed seemed well-nigh choked, and
they were judged by others to be tending in their
course towards a miserable and hopeless end. To
this latter class does he belong, whose life we have
undertaken to write, and not to anticipate the events
in his history, it may be briefly stated, that in his
case the graces of the saint shone not forth, until he

ST. WILLIAM IN PROSPERITY 367

had endured the abasements and humiliation of the
Penitent.

William's position in the world and circumstances
were against him : he was of the Royal family, and
therefore thrown at once into the temptations and
corruptions of a Court life and Court influence.
His uncle, Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester,
and the Pope's Legate, was his patron, and to him
he owed his promotion. Henry was doubtless a man
of much ability, and, as a statesman, full of intrigue
and court policy, was well suited for the times in
which he lived ; but viewing him as a bishop and
not as a statesman, he cannot claim our respect or
admiration : we cannot acquit him of great worldly-
mindedness, not to say actual want of principle.
Such was the man to whom William was under
great obligation, and it need hardly be said that it
requires a mind of no ordinary uprightness and
independence to escape the evil effects which are
almost invariably the consequences of being
patronised and advanced by those in authority.
The courts of kings and lordly palaces are not fit
schools for the Church's saints ; few pass through
them without feeling their evil influence, to many
they have proved their ruin. In addition to this,1
William was brought up in the midst of riches
and pleasures, those sad impediments to progress
in the spiritual life : and that they had a bad effect
upon his character is proved from the unfitness
which is recorded of him for labour or any great
exertion of body or mind, which led to a habit

1 John Prior Hagust, ap. Twysden, a. 1146, p. 274.

368 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

of occupying himself in matters of minor import-
ance when more urgent duties were demanding his
attention.1

But we will now proceed at once to his history :
he first comes before us as Treasurer of the Cathe-
dral Church of York, an office to which he was
promoted from personal merit, and which he
discharged in a very exemplary manner. This
gave him the opportunity of exercising his chari-
table disposition, and on being made treasurer, he
distributed his own wealth amongst the poor,
"considering no treasure more precious than
giving to those in poverty."2 The year in which
he was made treasurer is not known, and there is
no notice of dates respecting him until the year
1140, from which time we are able to place the
various events of his life in their proper order.

On the 5th of February 1140, the venerable Thur-
stan, Archbishop of York, died ; 3 he had been Arch-
bishop for six-and-twenty years, and had governed
his diocese with much vigour and godly prudence.
He had been chaplain to King Henry I., who found
in him a most valuable counsellor, so much so that
during the king's life he is said to have managed
all i the affairs of England and Normandy.4 He
founded eight religious houses, and among them the
once celebrated Abbey of Fountains, to which he
ordained one Richard, a Benedictine monk, as
the first abbot, December 15, 1132. A short time

1 John Prior Hagust, ap. Twysden, a. 1146, p. 276.

2 Bromton, ap. Twysden, p. 1041 ; Capgrave, fol. 310, 2.

3 John Hagust, p. 268.

4 Bolland, Act. SS. in vita S. Gul. June 8 ; Stubbs, ap. Twysden,
p. 1714-

ST. WILLIAM IN PROSPERITY 369

before his death he resigned his see, and retired as
a monk to the Cluniac Abbey of Pontefract, where
he finished his course in peace and tranquillity.1

At his death the spirit of contention and discord
began to show itself amongst the clergy of York.
For a whole year the Dean and Chapter, and the
rest of the clergy in whom the power of election
was vested, were divided in opinion as to a fit
person to fill the vacant see. At this period the
English Church was suffering under the commotion
to which the great ecclesiastical questions of the
day had given rise. The bishops and superior
ecclesiastics were necessarily politicians, and were
drawn into the party and state feuds that were then
agitating the land. Moreover, the whole country
was in a state of especial excitement, for Stephen
had usurped the crown, and most of the bishops
who had sworn allegiance to the Empress Mathilda
had turned round and were now, in spite of their
oaths, siding with the king. Mathilda herself was in
England, making the utmost endeavours to gain the
kingdom, and the nation was suffering from all the
horrors of a civil war. The two parties found their
representatives among the York clergy ; and as each
made it a great point to get a man of their own
opinions, and there seemed no chance of their
coming to a decision without some external inter-
ference, at last the Bishop of Winchester inter-
posed, and at his advice they elected one Henry de
Coilly, who was also a nephew of King Stephen's
and at this time Abbot of Caen.

1 Bromton, p. 1028. Dugdale, Monast. Angl. vol. v. p. 286-88,
Manriquez, Ann. Cisterc. a. 1143, cap. ii. § 5.

VOL. IV. 2 A

370 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

The Pope, however, declared that he could not
be elected archbishop unless he gave up his pre-
sent preferment. This we must suppose he was
unwilling to do, for in January 1141, the Dean and
Chapter again assembled for the election, and now
the majority decided in favour of William the
Treasurer,1 the subject of this memoir, whose repu-
tation for purity of life and general goodness
pointed him out as a fit person for this important
station.2

This appointment would of course cause much

1 Bromton, p. 1028.

2 Alford, vol. iv. pars post, p. 20, quoting Roger de Hoveden,
Matthew of Westminster, Trivet, and others, states that Henry Mur-
dach was elected at the same time as St. William ; but this seems
incorrect, and for the following reasons: 1st, Henry Murdach was not
made Abbot of Fountains, according to Dugdale (Dugdale's Monast.
Angl. vol. v. p. 288; see also Burton's Monast. Ebor.), until 1143,
and, according to John of Hexham, until 1 146 ; and it is certain that
he was abbot at the time of his election to the see of York, in 1148.
2nd, It is probable that at the time of St. William's election, Henry
was Abbot of Vauclair, from whence he was sent by St. Bernard to
Fountains (Vid. Historiens de France, vol. xiii. p. 698. Chron.
Alberici Trium Fontium monachi.) ; his name occurs in an ancient
chronicle, under the year 1134, as the first Abbot of Vallis Clara, and
therefore he must have been there more than nine years. He had
been one of those sent from Clairvaux, at the founding of Fountains
in 1132. (Vid. Manriq. Ann. Cist. 1132, cap. 8, § 6.)

The author of Gallia Christiana in his account of the monastery of
Vallis Clara (Vauclair) gives the following dates (Gallia Xtiania, vol.
ix. p. 633) :—

Founded 1134.

Henry Murdach first Abbot, 1135.

Abbot of Fountains, 1138.

Archbishop of York, 1 148.

It is possible that Henry Murdach might have become known to
the clergy of York during his two years' residence at Fountains, 1132-
1134, and so might have been nominated by part of the electors to fill
the vacant see, in 1140, although he was absent, but there seems no
reason to suppose that he was in England at the time of the election.

ST. WILLIAM IN PROSPERITY 371

displeasure amongst the supporters of Mathilda :
they would naturally say that it was a piece of
court patronage ; and in this they were probably
right. Stephen had shown himself no friend to
the Church, or 'at least to her bishops. Before
Mathilda entered the kingdom, he had seized the
bishops of Salisbury and Lincoln, thrown them
into dungeons, got possession of their castles, and
made a threat of starving the former the means of
obtaining the submission of the Bishop of Ely.
His own brother, who was the Pope's legate, had
been driven to summon him to defend his conduct
before a council. Stephen stopped its proceedings
by force, and completed his crime by seizing from
the altar the remainder of the Bishop of Salisbury's
property, which he had on his misfortunes given to
his church.1 Some years later we find him trying
to force an Archbishop of York to consecrate a
Bishop of Durham against his will, and refusing a
safe conduct to the Pope's legate. However,
general dissatisfaction or suspicion was not a suffi-
cient ground for nullifying the election of William :
certain definite charges must be brought against
him : and such a charge was forthcoming, though
it proceeded from a person not calculated to add
to its weight by his own character. As soon as it
was seen how the election was likely to turn,
Osbert, Archdeacon of York, who is described as
a man fond of power, and who on this occasion
was excited, as it appears, by feelings of envy,
prejudiced the minds of the better part of the
electors against William, notwithstanding the clergy

1 John Hagust, p. 268.

372 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

generally, as well as the people, were strongly in
favour of his election. But still his allegation de-
served the most serious attention. There was no
denying the prominent part which William, Earl
of York,1 the king's minister had taken in the elec-
tion. He had shown the greatest anxiety that it
should fall on William, so much so, that it is said
by some writers that he actually commanded the
Dean and Chapter to elect him in obedience to an
order from the king. If this were so, the election
would, strictly speaking, have been illegal, and we
shall see as we go on that this was the point on
which the whole dispute eventually turned, and
which alone was sufficient to nullify the proceed-
ing. This Earl of York gave occasion also to
Walter the Archdeacon of London's opposition to
St. William. The archdeacon, supposing that the
liberty of election was interfered with by this man-
date from the king, was proceeding to Stephen to
expostulate with him on the subject ; on his road
he was intercepted by the earl, who took him
prisoner and confined him at his castle at Biham.2

1 It is probable that this William was the first titular earl of this
county. He was William le Gros, of the house of Champaigne, and
Earl of Albemarle, and was made Earl of Yorkshire, or, as some say,
of York, by Stephen, in 1138, after the victory over the Scots, at the
famous battle of the Standard. On the same occasion, Robert de
Ferrers was made Earl of Derbyshire. " Willielmum de Albamarla in
Eboracensi, et Robertum de Ferrers in Derbyensi scyra Comites fecit."
(Vid. Rich. Hagust, de bello Standardii, ap. Twysden, p. 323, and
Drake's Antiquities of York, B. i. ch. viii. p. 349.)

2 Biham, Bythani, or Bitham, is situated in the SE. part of Lincoln-
shire. The Abbey of Vaudey, or De Valle Dei, was first founded here
by William, Earl of Albemarle, in 1 147. The monks, however, find-
ing some inconveniences in this place, removed to Vaudy, in the parish
of Edenham, in the same county. (Dugdale, vol. v. p. 489.)

ST. WILLIAM IN PROSPERITY 373

Notwithstanding the opposition, William, after
his election, was introduced l to Stephen at Lincoln,
who received him with much kindness and friend-
ship, and confirmed him in the archiepiscopal lands
and possessions. This, however, was not sufficient
to put down the party opposed to William, and
the king was not in a condition to enforce his
election even if he had wished to do so ; in conse-
quence nothing could be determined upon, neither
party would give way, and at last Henry, the Bishop
of Winchester, advised William to appeal to the
Pope and to seek an audience at Rome. Innocent
II. was at this time Pope, and had occupied the
chair of St. Peter since the year 1130. Theobald,
however, the Archbishop of Canterbury, of whom
we shall have occasion to speak more particularly
hereafter, was connected with the party opposed to
Stephen ; and hearing of the election, and how it
had been conducted, he sent immediately to Rome
and anticipated William's messengers. He gave a
most unfavourable view of William's case, declaring
that the election was null and void, and according
to the Cistercian annalist, who however is of no
authority whatever, he laid some very heavy charges
against William's private character.2

1 John Hagust, ubi sup.

3 Describing him as " modicum scientia, prudentiaque inexpertem,
sed quod longe deterius foedum moribus et non occultis vitiis defama-
tum." We may here observe that there is nothing in St. William's
history, as far as we are able to judge of it, not even St. Bernard's
strong language against him, to warrant the above remarks. St«
Bernard's strongest and most unfavourable expressions need not affect
St. William's private character ; and Manriquez the annalist (Vid. his
Ann. Cist. 1143, cap. iii. § i) is of the seventeenth century.

374 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

William's messengers on arriving at Rome found
that others had been beforehand with them, and
instead of receiving from the Pope the confirma-
tion of the election, together with the pallium,
returned back to York with an order from the
Pope that William should appear before him at
Rome to answer for himself. Matters now took
a more definite shape, and William's accusers be-
came more numerous and hostile, and they seemed
determined never to give way until their point was
gained. A fresh charge was now brought against
his friends, and that was simony ; they said he had
gained his election from bribery. This, however,
was never proved against him, neither was it, as we
shall see, the charge on the truth or falsehood of
which his cause was tried at Rome. However, it
was so far believed to be true as to have been the
cause of Robert Bisech, Prior of Hexham, giving
up the government of his priory, which was in
William's diocese, and retiring as a monk to St.
Bernard at Clairvaux.

Early in the year 1142 William's cause was heard
at Rome, in the Consistory of Pope Innocent.
Walter, the Archdeacon of London, appeared with
the charges of several abbots and priors against
him ; and it was ordered that all parties, both those
present and those who \vere absent, should appear
at Rome for the final settlement of the question,
on the third Sunday in Lent in the following year.1
Amongst his accusers were William, Abbot of
Rievaux ; Richard, Abbot of Fountains ; Cuthbert,

1 John Hagust, p. 271.

ST. WILLIAM IN PROSPERITY 375

Prior of Gisburn ; Wallevus, Prior of Kirkham ;
and Rodbertus Hospitalis1 — Cistercians, it will be
observed, and therefore friends of St. Bernard.

In obedience to the Pope's commands, the above-
mentioned abbots and priors met at Rome in the
beginning of 1143, together with William and his
coadjutors. His accusers then laid their charges
before the Pope ; the sum of which was that
William, Earl of York, had appeared as the king's
minister, and had in the presence of the Chapter,
and before their election had been decided on,
commanded William the Treasurer to be elected
archbishop by the king's authority. It does not
appear that any definite charge of simony was
alleged against him, though other complaints were
made, and therefore perhaps this amongst them ;
still one should have thought that if any act of
simony had been committed, it would have con-
stituted at least one of the charges publicly laid
before the Pope, and have been treated as of far
greater importance than the question of the validity
of the election. This is certainly an argument in
William's favour ; for it is hardly credible that the
Pope would have given the decision he did had
he considered William in the slightest degree guilty
of this great sin, but would have tried the cause
on that ground alone ; and if the accused had been
found guilty, would have deposed him at once as

1 The same Wallevus does not occur either in Dugdale or Burton,
but seems to be St. Waltheof. His father, whose name he bore, is
often called Gallevus ; and that he was Prior of Kirkham is evident
from Fordun Scot., vi. 7. Hospitalis is the person appointed in a
monastery to receive and attend upon strangers. Vid. Ducange, in
text. John Hagust, p. 272.

376 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

utterly unfit to feed the flock of Christ, which had
been purchased, not with money, but with the pre-
cious Blood of the Lamb of God. It is fair then
to suppose that the way in which the Pope treated
the case showed that he did not consider the
charge of simony sufficiently well established for
him to proceed against him on that ground alone.
He decreed that if the Dean of York would swear
that the king's mandate had not been given — that
is, that the election had been lawfully and canoni-
cally made before, and that if William on his part
would swear that he had not sought for the office
by any act of bribery, he might be lawfully con-
secrated. The Dean of York was absent, and
whether it was known that he would not take
the oath, or whether it was in case he should be
prevented by any just cause from so doing, it
was requested that certain fit persons might be
allowed to swear instead of the dean ; this, as we
shall see in the sequel, was brought against William
as a proof of the illegality of the election and of
the interference of the king. The Pope, however,
granted the request ; nothing more was done at
Rome on this occasion, and with a light heart at
the thought of his troubles being now well-nigh
ended, William returned to England. The storm
seemed now to have passed away ; all looked
bright and fair, and William appeared before the
English clergy at Winchester to receive the rite
of consecration.

Henry the legate summoned the clergy to a
Council at Winchester ; many of the dignitaries
of the Church were present ; it was a time of great

ST. WILLIAM IN PROSPERITY 377

rejoicing and exultation, and the people were so
urgent in favour of William that they seemed
rather to command his consecration, as if with
authority, than to show their great desire for it by
the mere expression of their feelings. In obedi-
ence to the Pope's injunction, the Dean of York
was summoned to the council to take the oath
which we have mentioned. He excused himself,
on the ground of the disturbances which one
William Comyn was causing in the diocese of
Durham, which was now vacant, and to which he
had been elected, but had not yet been consecrated
owing to these said disturbances.

It will furnish some further view into the history
of times so different from our own, if, at the risk
of losing sight for a while of our main subject, we
turn our attention very briefly to these disturbances.
Godfrey had been Bishop of Durham, and died on
the 6th of May 1140. A few days before his death,
William Comyn, Chancellor to the King of Scot-
land, and also Archdeacon of Worcester, came to
Durham to visit the bishop ; he was well known
to him, and had been partly educated by him.
Comyn, when he saw that the bishop's end was
approaching, prevailed upon certain of the bishop's
private clergy and attendants to promise that they
would give up the castle to him as soon as the
bishop was dead. Meanwhile the bishop died,
upon which Comyn exacted this also from them,
that they would conceal his death until he had seen
the King of Scotland and should have returned to
Durham ; he was bent on gaining the bishopric,
and therefore it was necessary for him to gain the

378 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

king's countenance and assistance in his attempts
to obtain it. The necessary steps were taken for
keeping the body until its interment,1 and from
Tuesday until Friday the castle was closed, the
prior and monks were refused admittance, and the
bishop's death carefully concealed. At length the
report became general that the bishop was dead,
and on the Friday they delivered up the body for
burial, pretending, however, that the bishop was
only just dead. The funeral took place on Satur-
day. On Sunday Comyn returned from the Scottish
Court, and, taking the government of the castle
entirely into his own hands, he admitted the prior
and monks to an audience ; he then assumed the
supreme control, disposed of and ordered all things
as he pleased, treating those whom he saw were
willing to yield to him with much courtesy, but
exercising extreme severity towards those who
opposed his wishes. The barons of the country,
with few exceptions, he easily gained over to his
side, and he next proceeded to gain the favour of
the Empress Mathilda. The circumstances of the
time favoured his purpose, for it so happened that
Stephen had been lately taken prisoner at the battle
of Lincoln, February 2, 1141, and the fortunes of
the empress seemed on the ascendant. She had
been just received with great favour by the citizens
of London (in those days one of the most powerful
and important bodies in the kingdom), and had
proceeded to hold her court there as Sovereign of
England. Thither the King of Scotland and his

1 Proinde quia cadaver aliter teneri non potuit, evisceratus a suis
Episcopus, &c.

ST. WILLIAM IN PROSPERITY 379

chancellor betook themselves. The king prevailed
upon the empress to give her consent to Comyn's
election to the Bishopric of Durham, and she was
about to invest him solemnly with the Pastoral
Staff and Ring, when the court was suddenly dis-
solved in great confusion, a conspiracy having been
formed against the empress by the citizens of
London, who had already made herself odious to
them by her haughty behaviour and exorbitant
demands. She fled for safety first to Oxford, and
then to Winchester, where she was besieged by the
very persons who a few days before had delivered
London into her hands and saluted her as queen.
This revolution frustrated the ambitious designs of
Comyn ; nothing daunted, however, by the failure
of his plans, he returned to Durham, where he
remained for three years, giving vent to his cruel
and rapacious disposition, but keeping on good
terms with the monks,1 with a view to having their
assistance in the prosecution of his designs.

For some time no steps were taken for filling the
vacant see ; but owing to the great disadvantages
arising from such a state of things, the Chapter at
length sent the Prior of Durham to the Chapter at
York, to consult with them as to the best measures
to be pursued towards the election of a fit person
to the bishopric. Messengers were sent to Rome
to seek advice from the Pope, from whom they
received permission to elect whomsoever they

1 "Multa in Episcopatu cupiditatis imo crudelitatis signa reliquit.
Monachis tamen jocundus semper et affabilis erat, a quibus se pro-
movendum sperabat."

380 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

would.1 Accordingly the Prior and Archdeacon of
Durham, with several of the regulars connected
with the diocese, met together in the chapel of St.
Andrew at York (being unable to carry on the elec-
tion at Durham) and chose as their bishop, William
de St. Barbara, Dean of York Cathedral, March 14,
1143. Henry, Bishop of Winchester, who from
the first had been of great assistance to the people
of Durham against the intruder Comyn, and who
had excommunicated him and his adherents, having
examined the letters from the Pope, and seen that
all had been done duly and in order, introduced
the bishop elect to King Stephen, who gave his
consent to the election ; and on the 2oth of June
1143, he was consecrated by Henry at Winchester,
in the presence of seven other bishops. Meanwhile
William Comyn, as soon as he heard of what was
going on at York, did all in his power to stop the
election, by watching the roads, and giving orders
that all persons proceeding to York should be in-
tercepted and given up to him. He also sent pre-
tended letters from the Chapter, forbidding the
election ; these, however, were indignantly rejected,
and his designs being still frustrated, all that he
could now do was to prevent the new bishop
coming to Durham : he therefore commenced a
system of most cruel and savage persecution against
the clergy and all who he supposed sided with him.
Some few of the barons, who from the first had
opposed Comyn and his party, and were now stead-
fast in their allegiance to the bishop, prevailed

1 John Hagulstad, p. 272,

ST. WILLIAM IN PROSPERITY 381

upon him to come to Durham. Yielding to their
entreaties, the bishop entered the city the morning
after the Assumption, when several of the barons
came and did homage to him ; amongst them one
Roger de Coyniers, who had fortified a stronghold
in the diocese for the use of the bishop, who indeed
was soon obliged to retreat thither for refuge : for
the cruelty and rage of Comyn knew no limits, his
system of persecution was frightful. He continued
for many days to put to tortures of the most ex-
cruciating kind all those who were on the bishop's
side. The city presented the most miserable
appearance ; the divine offices were suspended, the
churches profaned, instruments of torture and per-
sons suffering the greatest agonies from them were
seen in all the streets : nothing could exceed the
fury and licentiousness of the intruder. The bishop
was kept in continual siege, first in one fortress
and then in another. A truce was made between
him and Comyn, but was soon broken by the latter.
At length, after a series of the most wild excesses,
after much profaneness and sacrilege, the wretched
man was induced, for reasons unknown, to implore
forgiveness at the bishop's hands.

It will be now confessed that the Dean of York and
bishop elect of Durham had had business enough
on his hands to constitute a very fair excuse for
absenting himself from the Council of Winchester,
where we left William waiting for him to give
evidence in his favour, according to the Pope's
injunction, before his own consecration. The sus-
pense of both the new prelates ended about the
same time. As proxies for the Dean of York, there

382 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

had appeared Ralph Nuel, Bishop of the Orkneys,
Severinus, Abbot of York, and Benedict, Abbot of
Whitby, who took the oath required, and afforded
the necessary satisfaction for the archbishop elect.
On the 26th of September William was consecrated
by the Bishop of Winchester, amidst great rejoic-
ings both of clergy and people ; and on St. Luke's
day following, the bishop, attended by William,
Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Carlisle,
was solemnly enthroned, and at the same time
William Comyn was admitted to the commence-
ment of his penitence, and promised in the presence
of the bishops to make satisfaction as far as that
was possible for the injuries he had committed.1

1 This sketch is necessarily imperfect, inasmuch as a full narration
of all particulars would form almost a history of itself. All the cir-
cumstances are given at great length by Simeon Dunelmensis, Hist,
de Dunelmens. Eccles. ap. Twysden, and by the Monachus Dunel-
mensis de Episcop. Dunelmens: in] Wharton's Anglia Sacra, p. i. pp.
710-717, to whom we refer the reader.

CHAPTER II

ST. WILLIAM OPPOSED BY ST. BERNARD

IMMEDIATELY after his consecration, William re-
turned to York, where we have no notice of his
proceedings, except that on St. Luke's day following
he assisted, as we have seen, at the enthronisation
of the Bishop of Durham. This would lead us to
suppose that the Bishop of Durham was on good
terms at least openly with William, and that it was
not from any ill-will that he refused to take the
oath. William was not permitted to remain long in
peace and quiet ; fresh trials awaited him, and a
new and formidable opponent appeared in the ranks
of his enemies. This was St. Bernard.

On September 24, 1143, Pope Innocent died, and
on the very same day on which William had
been consecrated, Celestine II. was chosen as the
new Pope. The news of these two appointments
had no sooner reached the ears of St. Bernard,
than we find him applying himself, with his wonted
zeal and earnestness, against what he supposed was
an uncanonical and invalid ordination. It may be
asked how St. Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, at
such a distance from England, should either know

of or interfere with the ecclesiastical affairs of

383

384 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

England? In answer to this question, it will be
sufficient to mention that at this time, and for some
years previously, St. Bernard had literally been
conducting the affairs both ecclesiastical and civil
of the whole western Church. Compelled by the
earnest entreaties of the Pope to leave the solitude
of the peaceful Clairvaux which he so dearly loved,
he found himself thrust into the noise and tumult
of men and nations : he it was who settled the
disputes of princes, as well as the strifes and con-
tentions amongst the clergy. For the space of ten
years (1130-1140) he was, as it were, the great
moving principle in all the important events of that
period. Through his exertions Pope Innocent II.
was acknowledged by the principal Christian
sovereigns, and the Antipope Anaclete compelled
to give way to the all-powerful influence of this
man of God. We find him in Aquitaine settling
the disputes of William the Duke of that pro-
vince, whose haughty and rebellious spirit he so
completely subdued, that he passed the remainder
of his life in penitence, and died a thoroughly
altered man. We find him at the Councils of
Rheims and Pisa, at Milan, where he compelled
the unprincipled Archbishop Anselm to recognise
the authority of the Pope. By his preaching and
his wondrous miracles, he brought the turbulent
population into a state of peace and quiet, and won
numberless converts to a religious and penitential
life : in short the whole western world was at this
time depending on St. Bernard. Wherever he went
crowds attended him : his door was always thronged
with people wishing to consult him. High and low,

ST. WILLIAM OPPOSED 385

the beggar and the prince, popes and prelates, lay-
men and clerks, the sinner and the saint, one and all
sought from him counsel and guidance, so wonder-
fully did the grace of God shine forth in all he did
or said. And can we wonder then that the holy
and religious in our own country should have
communicated their distress and their wants to this
great apostle, raised up, as it appears, and endued
with extraordinary grace and power from on high,
for the very purpose of protesting against, and
eradicating the abuses and corruptions which then
existed, and which so sadly marred and spoiled the
beauty of the Bride of Christ ? The times of which
we write were times of trouble, and of anguish
and rebuke for England. Love had waxed cold,
and faith was well-nigh dead. The horrors of a
civil war were at their height, and its evil effects had
penetrated into the recesses of cloister and cathedral.
The bishops at this time were but a sorry example
to the rest of the clergy ; they had mixed themselves
up in the quarrels and interests of the State ; they
seem to have forgotten that their weapons were not
the sword and spear, but prayer and fasting, and
thus many of them with their fortified castles and
numerous retainers, presented the appearance
rather of worldly and rapacious barons, than of
meek servants and soldiers of the Cross. In such a
state of things as this, gladly would those few, who
beheld with awe and amazement the corruptions of
the Church, and whose hearts were well-nigh burst-
ing with holy indignation at what was going on,
seek counsel and support of such an one as St.
Bernard, who in this way became acquainted with
VOL. iv. 2 B

386 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

the state of the Church, and the affairs of almost
every diocese in Europe.

With regard to the affairs of York, it is more than
probable that St. Bernard had direct and constant
information, and this from two sources. It has
already been mentioned that Robert Bisech, Prior
of Hexham, being fully persuaded of the truth of
the charges brought against William personally, and
being unwilling to remain under the jurisdiction of
one whom he considered guilty of simony, gave up
his house, and retired as a monk to Clairvaux.
Here then was a direct channel of information for
St. Bernard, who of course would only hear one
side of the question, and that the very worst. But
in addition to this, the abbeys of Rievaux and
Fountains were both under the jurisdiction of Clair-
vaux, and were of the Cistercian order, and there-
fore in constant communication with their parent
society. We have seen above that the abbots of both
these houses had appeared at Rome against St.
William in 1143, and in that same year, probably as
he was returning home, Richard, the Abbot of
Fountains, died at Clairvaux ; upon which St.
Bernard immediately convened the Chapter to
deliberate as to whom they should appoint as his
successor. Their choice fell upon Henry Murdach,1
then Abbot of Vauclair, who, as we have already
mentioned, had been induced by St. Bernard, when
young, to enter upon a religious and contemplative
life, and had joined the brotherhood of Clairvaux.
Henry, being a person of very great sanctity, was

1 Dugdale Monast. Angl. vol. v. p. 286. Cart, ad Fontanense
Caenobium in agro Ebor. fundatum, A.D. 1132. Num. xxvii,

ST. WILLIAM OPPOSED 387

entrusted by St. Bernard with full power to conduct
the regulation and visitation of the monastery,
which he appears to have done in a most exemplary
manner.1 This then would be another source from
which St. Bernard would gain information as to
what was going on at York ; the course of our
history will show us what opinion St. Bernard had
of William .in consequence, and what use he made
of the information he received.

Celestine II. had no sooner ascended the Apos-
tolic Chair, than St. Bernard, determined to oppose
to the uttermost what he believed to be a case of
gross irregularity, and if so, of very great injury to
the Church at large, addressed the Pope in terms
of no common warmth and earnestness. Wholly
bent as he was in thoroughly purging the Church
of abuses, and of raising amongst 'the clergy a
higher tone both of life and feeling, this was pre-
cisely the case in which he would use all his ener-
gies and endeavours ; and being persuaded of the
uncanonical character of the election, and also of
the personal unfitness (as he supposed) of the
archbishop for the charge, as the mere tool of a
monarch who wished to create a party in a Church
where he was unpopular, he was determined to get
him deposed, and towards this end, he applied at
once to the Court of Rome.

It will be remembered, that the conditions on
which Innocent II. had given his sanction for

1 " Henricum de Valle clare Abbatem ad Anglicanas partes trans-
misit, vices suas tarn in ordinatione quam in exequenda visitatione,
illi committens." — St. Bern. Ep. 106, also 320 and 321. Op. ed
Mabillon.

388 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

William's consecration, were, that the Dean of
York should swear that the mandate from the king
had not superseded, or interfered with the election
of the Chapter ; he also granted that, in case it was
necessary, three fit persons might swear instead of
the dean ; which we have seen was done at the
Council at Winchester, which the dean was not
able to attend, on account of the disturbances of
William Comyn. We have no means of discovering
for certainty whether the dean, had he been able
to have attended the council, would have taken the
oath or not ; but assuming as we do, that William
himself knew nothing about the king's mandate,
the English synod, as far as we can see, were per-
fectly justified in considering both his election and
consecration valid, after the oath had been taken
by a bishop and two abbots as proxies for the
dean. St. Bernard, however, considered this a
plain proof that the dean could not take the oath,
and also that William knew this, and had himself
connived at the arrangement ; and this, together
with the fact that his information came from those
who, from whatever cause, were professed enemies
of William, will account for the very strong terms
in which he expresses himself. But before we
proceed to the letters of St. Bernard, it may not
be amiss to mention a strong argument in favour
of William's personal character, and this is the
testimony of the monks of Fountains, who, as we
shall see hereafter, suffered much from William's
appointment, and who therefore must have been
impartial in their opinion. They say in one of
their documents belonging to the monastery, that

ST. WILLIAM OPPOSED 389

William "was a man of high birth, adorned with
many virtues, and in all respects worthy to preside
over a cathedral, if his election had been more
canonical? * Here then there is not a word against
him personally, but only against the way in which
his election was conducted.

Let us now return to St. Bernard. In his first
letter to Celestine,2 he calls upon him to carry out
and fulfil the intentions of his predecessor, and tells
him that here was a good opportunity for so doing.
He declares that the case of the Archbishop of
York had been decided by Pope Innocent, and yet
that his sentence had not been carried into effect.
For though the archbishop had been accused on
various grounds, yet that the whole controversy
was allowed to rest upon one point which was to
be decided by the dean, and he implies that this
was at the request of the accused himself. And
yet, he continues, what has been the issue ? The
dean would not swear, and yet William is bishop.
He then inveighs against him as "one whose
character was low, ill spoken of, one accused by
public fame, who had not been cleared of the
charges, but rather convicted." He concludes by
demanding of the Pope whether his Suffragan
Bishops and the rest of the clergy were to receive
the Sacraments from, and pay obedience to, such a
man, " to one who had been twice thrust into the
sanctuary — once by the king, and once by the
legate — and who not being able to enter in by
the door, had dug an entrance, as the saying is, by

1 Dugdale Monast. Angl. vol. v. p. 300, Cart. Num. xxvi.
2 S. Bern. Ep. 235.

390 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

a silver spade, through which he had impudently
thrust himself." J

In no less strong terms is the letter to the Bishops
and Cardinals of the Roman Court. And in this
letter St. Bernard mentions certain letters which
William said he had received from the Pope, but
of which St. Bernard says, " Would they had been
from the prince of darkness, not from the Prince of
the Apostles ! " 2

It is probable that this was the letter giving
permission to the dean to. have proxies in case he
could not attend to take the oath himself ; and we
may here observe, that the reason the Pope gave
the decision he did respecting the oath, was not
that those who supported the election denied that
the Earl of York had come to the Chapter and
recommended William for the vacant see. They
did not deny this, but only that he had absolutely
commanded the election, as if the king had supreme
power in such cases. But after all we cannot
arrive at any certainty upon the question ; all that
we would maintain is this, that William was to all
appearances innocent of the charges laid against
him, but that his election might have been, indeed
probably was, uncanonical. Doubtless St. Bernard
supposed he had good grounds for opposing him,
and we shall only be following the opinion of Pope
Benedict XIV., to whom we shall again refer pre-

1 "Turpis infamisque persona : publice infamatus nee purgatus, imo
et convictus . . . Fodit argenteo, ut aiunt, sarculo, unde impudenter
intrusit." — Ep. 236.

1 " Utinam a principibus tenebrarum, non a principibus Apos-

tolorum."

ST. WILLIAM OPPOSED 391

sently, if we say that, as far as William's personal
character was concerned, St. Bernard was mis-
taken.

Knowing, however, what we do of St. Bernard,
and of his immense influence, we cannot be sur-
prised that his opposition was not without its effect
upon the Pope. William, after his consecration,
petitioned Celestine in the accustomed way for the
Pallium,1 without which he could not exercise the
full powers of his office : his opponents however at
Rome brought forward many charges against him,
and his request was denied : he was commanded to
appear in person before the Pope, and to answer
for himself.2 But in the meantime Celestine died,
on the 8th of March 1144, an(^ on the I2^h of the
same month, Lucius II. was consecrated as his
successor ; he is described as not being of such an
austere disposition as the former Pope. Immedi-
ately on his appointment, the Bishop of Winchester
petitioned him in favour of his nephew William,
and was successful : he met with favour and assist-
ance from Lucius, but not so far as to retain the
office of Legate which he had hitherto held. This
office was now given to Hicmar (or Ymar), Cardinal
Bishop of Tusculum, who had been chosen from
the monastery at Cluny, and admitted into the
Apostolic college by Pope Innocent II. He was
now sent to England as Legate, and bearer of the
Pallium for the Archbishop of York. It was on this
occasion that William's easy,3 and, as it would seem,

1 Gul. Neubrig. lib. i. c. xvii. " Responsales idoneos, pro petendo
solemniter Pallio ad Sedem Apostolicam direxisset."

2 John Hagust. p. 273. 8 Ibid. p. 274.

392 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

dilatory disposition, of which we spoke at the
beginning of our history, proved greatly injurious
to his own welfare ; for through negligence he
failed to meet the Legate, at the time and place
appointed ; occupied perhaps in some trivial and
unimportant business compared with the duty of
meeting the Pope's messenger and receiving from
him what, in those days, was an indispensable badge
of his office. It seems, however, probable that Hic-
mar would not at once have conferred the Pallium,
for St. Bernard1 had written to William, Abbot of
Rievaux, at the same time that Hicmar was sent to
England, telling him that he had used every possible
means to get the archbishop deposed, and that he
had suggested to the Legate not to deliver the
Pallium, unless the Dean of York would himself
take the oath. Be this as it may, so it was, that
whilst William was delaying, his friend and patron
Lucius died, February 25, 1145, and was succeeded
by the friend and disciple of St. Bernard, Eugenius
III. The tide had now again turned against William :
the Legate was forbidden to confer the Pallium :
heavier trials now await him ; his opponents were
greatly strengthened by the succession of the new
Pontiff, and as we shall see, gained their end, and
were for the time successful.

1 Ep. 360.

CHAPTER III

ST. WILLIAM DEPOSED

POPE Lucius, as we have seen, died on the 25th of
February 1145, and on the 24th of the following
month, Bernard of Pisa, Abbot of the monastery of
St. Anastasius, at Rome, was consecrated as his
successor, under the title of Eugenius III. The
circumstances of his election are too curious to be
omitted. He was a monk of Clairvaux, and had
been sent five years before by St. Bernard to found
the monastery just mentioned. Even this office
seemed far too much for him, for he was a man of
inferior abilities, and of no education : his duties at
Clairvaux had been " to take care of the stove, and
to make a fire for the monks, who from being but
thinly clad, were generally pierced with cold after
the matin service."1 Whilst Abbot at Rome, he
encountered great difficulties and vexations from
the slander and calumnies of a false brother; so
much so, that he entreated St. Bernard to allow
him to return to Clairvaux, "for that he was in
danger of becoming the laughing-stock of the whole
city."2 It was this weak and humble monk, who

1 Ann. Cist. p. 393, n. 10. Vie de St. Bern, par Ratisbonne, vol.
ii. pp. 59, 60.

2 Ep. 343, 344, inter Ep. S. Bern. ed. Mabillon.

393

394 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

belonged neither to the episcopal order nor to the
college of Cardinals, and who was unequal to
manage a small monastery, that found himself
chosen to be the head of the whole Church. And
in him were verified most fully the words of St.
Paul, that God had chosen the weak things of the
world to confound the strong, for Eugenius after
his election became quite another person, so that
every one was astonished at his wisdom and the
firmness of his conduct. This will account for the
great influence which St. Bernard had over Euge-
nius, and for the unwillingness the latter displayed
to go against the wishes and advice of such a
counsellor.

At this time the Cistercian order began to increase
in power and influence,1 and especially under the
Pontificate of Eugenius, who himself was, as we
have seen, the disciple of St. Bernard ; and it seems
probable that this, among other circumstances,
gave a unity of purpose to the proceedings which
were now to be taken against William. We may
also here remark in passing, that the Cistercians,
with St. Bernard at their head, were the great
reformers of the day ; that is, they had both
attempted, and with success too, to restore their
order to its ancient system of strictness and dis-
cipline, and were now endeavouring to do the same
for the Church at large. Their life was one con-
tinued protest against abuses and lax practices,
which then so sullied the beauty of the Church,
and of these, the one against which they lifted up

1 Gervasii Chronicon, ap. Twysden, p. 1361.

ST. WILLIAM DEPOSED 395

their voice incessantly, was simony. This was the
crime which, notwithstanding the saintly opposition
which the great Gregory VII. had made against it,
was still disgracing the Church of Christ. How to
overcome it was still one of the most anxious and
interesting questions to all those who had the
Church's welfare at heart, and to none was it more
full of anxiety and care than to St. Bernard.
Hence then his determined opposition to William,
hence his expressions of indignation and disgust ;
for it must be allowed that however free from the
taunts of this crying sin William might have been,
still he was in the eyes of such as St. Bernard the
representative of the simoniacal party. He was
mixed up with its supporters ; his friends, alas !
and patrons, were confessedly on the side of the
world, and he himself had yet to learn " that if any
man love the world, the love of the Father is not in
him." But to return. William's opponents soon
perceived that there would be little difficulty in
gaining the Pope over to their side ; and therefore,
no sooner was Eugenius elected, than the case of
the archbishop was brought before him. Henry
Murdach now appears foremost in opposing him ; 1
he was doubtless well acquainted with Eugenius,
and on the strength of this, he urged his complaints
against William with great confidence. Their first
step was to prevail on the Pope to recall the Legate
Hicmar, and to forbid his giving the Pallium to
William.

In 1146, William beginning, as we may suppose,

1 " Plurimum praesumens sibi de gratia Apostolici."

396 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

to realise the disadvantages of his position, de-
termined to petition the Pope in person for the
Pallium, and for that purpose went to Rome.
Here he found the Roman Senate in favour of
his cause ; but this was as nothing while he had
St. Bernard still against him, who hearing that
he was at Rome, wrote at once to Eugenius in
terms of far greater indignation and vehemence
than those which he had used to Celestine.1
Eugenius was perplexed ; he dreaded — and well
he might — to go against St. Bernard, and yet, as
it would seem, it did not appear clear to him
how to carry out into effect the wishes of his
adviser. St. Bernard, on the other hand, declared
that though importunate, he yet had a fair excuse ;
he complains that all the world was taking him
for Pope, and every one consulting him on their
own affairs. The righteousness of the cause he
now has in hand excuses his importunity. His
pen was again directed against that idol of York
" idolum Eboracense," and this from necessity,
for he had often aimed at it with the same weapon,
but had not yet cast it down. He tells the Pope
that he alone had the power of deposing a bishop,
and that he alone would be to blame if this crime
which must be punished is not so, and that too
with the severity it deserves. He leaves it to his
own conscience to decide, with what violence the
offence of him of York should be not struck down
so much, as blasted, as it were, with lightning;2
he tells him that the reason it had not been done

1 Ep. 238, 239.
2 " Non dico ferienda, sed fulminanda."

ST. WILLIAM DEPOSED 397

so before, was that he might have the doing of it,
that the Church of God over which he presided
by Divine authority might see in this case the
fervour of his zeal, and the power and wisdom
of his soul, and that all the people might fear
the Priest of the Lord when they heard that the
wisdom of God was with him for executing judg-
ment.

How could Eugenius resist such arguments as
these, coming as they did from one to whom he
had so lately been in the habit of paying the most
unquestioning obedience ? Supreme though he
was, and responsible to no man, he had not for-
gotten the ties which bound him to St. Bernard ;
now more than ever would he seek from him
support and counsel. In the present instance St.
Bernard was decided — he was rarely mistaken —
how could he oppose such an one ? No — he was
in a great strait, and dreading on the one hand
to neglect St. Bernard's counsel, and being un-
willing on the other to go counter to the wishes
and opinions of the Roman College, he took as
it were a middle course, and decreed that until
the Dean of York, now Bishop of Durham, should
himself take the oath required of him by Pope
Innocent, William must cease to exercise the
office of bishop. This was the answer he sent
to St. Bernard, and at the same time he wrote to
the Bishop of Durham, adjuring him to declare
the truth openly and without reserve. The bishop
now seems to have given his opinion against the
archbishop's election, and to have acknowledged
that it was uncanonical ; and we cannot but

39B LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

wonder at the course he had taken : by his
duplicity he had allowed three persons to swear
to what they could not but believe was true, he
the while being conscious of the contrary : he
had openly professed regard for William, who,
as we have seen, was present when he was en-
throned, and now, to suit his own purposes, he
found it convenient to declare all he knew about
the matter : but why not have done so at once ?
to what profit was this duplicity and unfairness ?
No words of ours are necessary to expose this
unprincipled proceeding, the facts themselves
are quite sufficient to convict the bishop of most
unchristian and unmanly conduct. St. Bernard,
depending on this declaration, and as was reason-
able, more anxious than ever to see the irregularity
corrected, addressed a second letter to Eugenius,1
and demands how much longer the land was to
be burdened, and the fruit choked up by this use-
less branch ? the time was come for its amputa-
tion ; for the very man on whom it trusted had
declared that it must not be pruned but cut away.2
He says that letters3 from the Bishop of Durham
to the Pope's Legate were in existence, in which
the fact of intrusion is plainly avowed, and the
election denied. And thus his defender, as he
supposed, has turned out to be his accuser. It
was not his part (St. Bernard's) to dictate in what
way (for there seemed to be more ways than one)

1 Ep. 240.

2 " Non purgatione, sed amputatione opus esse."

3 It is probable that the letters were written at the time that Hicmar
was in England.

ST. WILLIAM DEPOSED 399

the offender must be deposed. It matters little
how the unfruitful tree falls, if only it doth fall.
As to what he (William) says about his own private
letters respecting the oath, it is either true or false :
if true, then the Pope was the guilty person ; but
God forbid that such duplicity as this be imputed
to so great a man : "for Innocent," continues St.
Bernard, "was of that character, that if he were
able now to answer for himself, he would say,
' Openly did I give my sentence against thee, and
in secret have I spoken nothing/ "

But whatever be the truth of the matter, for it
is impossible to come to any exact knowledge of
the real state of the question, St. Bernard, as was
likely, prevailed ; and William perceiving at length
that his cause was hopeless, and that both his
letters which he said he had received from Pope
Innocent were accused of being counterfeit, and
also that the Bishop of Durham, whom he had
supposed was his friend, had now deserted him,
if not betrayed him, finding all his endeavours
useless, left Rome and retired to Sicily,1 Roger
the king of that island being his kinsman. Here
he stayed for some time with one Robert, an
Englishman of Salisbury, the king's Chancellor :
afterwards he returned to England ; but we must
here leave him for a while, to follow up the events
which took place both in England and France after
the Pope's decision respecting him.

The news of the Pope's decision respecting the
archbishop had no sooner arrived in England, than

1 John Hagust. p. 275.

400 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

the greatest indignation and confusion prevailed at
York and in the neighbourhood.1 The king's party
were of course offended beyond measure, and the
supporters of Mathilda, who had hitherto strained
every nerve for the deposition of William, were
now exulting in all the joy of having gained their
point. Their exultation only increased the rage of
their opponents ; at length the king's adherents,
and amongst them some of William's own kinsmen,
being no longer able to contain their indignation,
formed a conspiracy against Henry Murdach, whom
they considered to have been the chief cause of the
archbishop's disgrace.2 They attacked the Abbey
of Fountains in a large body, with drawn swords,
which they hoped to bedew in the blood of the
holy abbot. Their rage had so passed all control,
that they feared not to profane the sacred abbey
itself : 3 with impious and sacrilegious hands they
tore down the gates, and entered the very sanc-
tuary : but when he, for whose blood they thirsted,
was not to be found, they rushed through the
adjacent buildings and offices, laying everything
waste, and carrying off whatever was valuable ;
and to finish their work of impiety, they set fire
to the building, erected at so much labour and
expense, and soon reduced it to a mass of ashes.
At a short distance off stood the holy brotherhood,
and beheld in dismay and anguish their house and
Church crumbling and sinking into ashes before
the devouring flames. One little oratory, with its

1 Godwin de Prsesulibus, vol. ii. p. 250. Ed. fol.

2 Dugdale«Monast. Angl. vol.*v. p. 286, Cart. Num. xxxvi.
8 John Hagust. ubi sup.

ST. WILLIAM DEPOSED 401

adjacent offices, remained to them not quite con-
sumed, like a brand snatched from the fire. Here
at the foot of the altar lay prostrate the abbot,
pouring forth in prayer his soul to God. His
prayers were heard, for here, while the hand of
the destroyer was at work, he lay unseen, unhurt,
"safe under the defence of the Most High, and
abiding under the shadow of the Almighty." The
destroyers supposing that he was not at Fountains,
at length departed, " laden," as the monkish writer
says, "not with much money, but with much
damnation.1 They lived not long to rejoice in
their impious deed : they were struck with the
hand of God, and were cut off almost immediately
in their sins, some of them dying of consumption,
some by drowning, and some were struck with
madness ; all of them in a short time perished in
various ways, and almost all unreconciled to God."
Meanwhile the abbot and monks, taking courage
and comfort from above, set themselves vigorously
to work to rebuild the abbey and monastery, and
as it is written, " the bricks are fallen down, but we
will build with hewn stones," 2 so was it with the
Abbey of Fountains : holy and faithful men of
the neighbourhood gave their assistance, and in a
short time the new fabric rose more beautiful and
glorious than the former.

This shameful proceeding gave the finishing
stroke, as it were, to William's case : an account
of it was straightway sent to Rome, and though the
archbishop was in no way concerned in it,3 we

1 " Parum quidem pecuniae sed plurimum damnationis."

2 Isaiah ix. 10. * Gul. Neubrig. lib. i. c. xvii.
VOL. IV. 2 C

1IBRARY ST. MARY'S COUEG1

402 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

cannot be surprised that the Pope should suppose
he was, and consequently that he was now deter-
mined to punish him with the greatest severity ;
and for this purpose he endeavoured, but without
success, to seize him.1

In the year 1147, which, according to the French
and English reckoning of those times, was still
current, Easter falling on the nth of April, but
according to our present calculation, in the be-
ginning of 1148, Eugenius left Rome and came
into France for the purpose of presiding at a
council of the Gallican and Anglican bishops. The
prelates of both countries were commanded to
appear, and in the middle of Lent Eugenius held
the great Council of Rheims.2 We may here men-
tion a fact connected with this council, which will
illustrate the party spirit which was at that time
existing in England, even between one bishop and
another. Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, had
received the Pope's command to attend the council,
and had accordingly asked, but could not obtain,
the king's permission to go. Inasmuch, however,
as he feared God more than the king, he started,
and with very great difficulty arrived in France.
For in order to prevent his departure, the king had
ordered all the seaports to be narrowly watched
and guarded. This was done at the suggestion of
Henry, the Bishop of Winchester, who for some
time previously to this had been on bad terms with
the archbishop. The origin of the ill-will between
them seems to have arisen from Henry's disappoint-

1 John Hagust. ubi sup. ; see also Ep. 252, St. Bern.

2 Gervasii Chronicon, p. 1363.

ST. WILLIAM DEPOSED 403

ment at not having been promoted to the See of
Canterbury, which, says the Canterbury historian,
he fully expected.1 They then had disputes con-
cerning the rights and privileges of their respective
offices and jurisdiction. The archbishop accused
Henry of abusing his power as Legate, and had
petitioned Pope Celestine to remove him from his
office.2 On the present occasion, Henry had so
contrived, that if the archbishop left the country
he should be proscribed by the king, whereas, if he
did not attend the council he would be suspended,
if not deposed, for contempt of the Pope. Theo-
bald, however, found means to embark, and in a
small shattered bark reached, after great danger,
the French shore, and made his appearance at the
council. The Pope received him with great joy
and honour, and commended him for his zealous
and fearless conduct. On his return from France,
Stephen sentenced him to banishment, for which
the whole kingdom was put under an interdict by
command of the Pope.3 There were present also
at the council those of the clergy of York who
were opposed to William, together with Henry
Murdach. They again laid their complaints be-
fore the Pope, and declared that William had not
been canonically elected, or lawfully consecrated,
but had been thrust in by the king's authority,
"auctoritate regia intrusum." Whereupon Alberic,

1 Gervasii Chronicon, an. 1138, p. 1348.

2 Vid. Gervasii Act. Pontif. Cantuar., p. 1665, et Step. Birchington
vitae Archiep. Cantuar. Anglia Sacra, pars i. p. 7.

3 Vid. Chronica W. Thorn, A.D. 1148, ap. Twysden, p. 1807, et
Gervasius, p. 1363.

404 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

Bishop of Ostia, pronounced the sentence of the
Pope in the following words : l " We decree, by the
authority of the Pope, that William, Archbishop
of York, be deposed from the Pontificate, because
Stephen, King of England, nominated him before
the canonical election had taken place." We may
here remark, that here for the first time the legality
of his consecration came into question, and the
probable reason for its not being considered legal
was the non-consent of the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, which was mentioned above.

The See of York was now again vacant, and
Eugenius immediately addressed letters to the
Bishop of Durham and the Chapter of York, com-
manding them, within forty days after the receipt of
the letters, to elect in the room of William a learned,
discreet, and religious person. In obedience to this
command, the superior clergy of the Cathedral and
Diocese of York met on the eve of the festival of
St. James the Apostle, in the Church of St. Martin,
in the suburb of Richmond,2 to choose a fit person
to fill the vacant See ; after much deliberation the
majority chose Hylarius, Bishop of Chichester; the
rest of the Chapter, Henry Murdach, Abbot of
Fountains.3 The issue of their meeting was re-
ported to Eugenius, in the ensuing winter, when
he confirmed the election of Henry Murdach, and
consecrated him with his own hands at Treves, on
the second Sunday in Advent, in the octave of St.

1 Gervasius, ubi sup.

2 " In suburbium de Richemund."

a Gervasius ubi sup. John Hagust. p. 276; Dugdale, Monast. Angl.,
vol. v. p. 286, Cart. Num. xxxvii.

ST. WILLIAM DEPOSED 405

Andrew. Henry, now archbishop, and duly in-
vested with the Pallium, set out on his journey for
England, little imagining the kind of reception that
awaited him.1 William had been dearly beloved by
the common people of York, and, as we think,
deservedly so, for his exceeding benevolence to
them, and for the holiness of his life, and now they
could ill endure the presence of one whom they
knew had been one of the main instruments in
getting him deposed. They were not likely to enter
into questions about the legality of his election ; all
they knew or cared for was, that William had been
a good archbishop and friend to them, and now he
was taken away from them, and, as they supposed,
on unjust grounds, and another, one of his very
enemies, sent to them, in his stead : this was more
than they could endure, and so, swayed entirely by
their feelings, they set themselves at once with all
their might against the new archbishop, and having
laid their plans, they prevented his entrance into
York. Stephen, too, was highly indignant at the
treatment of his nephew, and by way of revenge
required Henry to take some unusual oath, which
he refused to do ; consequently the king's party was
added to his opponents. The citizens remained
firm, and drove him from the city ; and the greatest
confusion now prevailed. The archbishop anathe-
matised the insurgents,2 and laid them under an
interdict. The Cathedral was closed, the sacred
rites discontinued, and the insurrection spread
through the whole province, but especially in the

1 Godwin de Praesul. Angl., vol. ii. p. 250, fol. ed.

2 John Ilagust. p. 277. Godwin, ubi sup.

4o6 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

city, where things arrived at such a pitch, that an
archdeacon,1 a friend of the archbishop's, was
murdered. Meanwhile Henry retired to Ripon,
where he remained for several years, during the
whole of which time the disturbances at York never
ceased. The king's soldiers were continually per-
secuting those who had any share in William's
deposition.2 Eustace, King Stephen's son, hearing
that the services of the Church were discontinued,
appeared at York at the head of a body of troops,
and commanded the clergy, in spite of the arch-
bishop's anathema, to resume them, and perform
them in the accustomed manner ; and he severely
punished the people of Beverley for having received
and afforded protection to the archbishop.

Thus, instead of the peaceful quiet and repose of
Fountains, Henry for the first three years of his
episcopate met with nothing but difficulties and
vexations. The displeasure of his sovereign, the
perplexity and distraction of the few that still re-
mained faithful to him, the hatred of his citizens,
and the continual plottings and conspiracies of his
adversaries, were but a sorry exchange for a life of
prayer and contemplation, for the round of holy
services, and the society of those who were as his
own children in love and affection for him. It
seems, however, that he repined not at what he
acknowledged to be the will of God, but remaining
quietly at Ripon, he at length was recompensed for
all his sufferings ; the malice of his enemies gave
way before his prudence, his meekness overcame

1 Godwin, p. 251.

* John Hagust. p. 278, et Gul. Neub. lib. i. c. xvii.

ST. WILLIAM DEPOSED 407

their fury, and even the indignation and opposition
of the king was at length compelled to yield to his
forbearance and Christian patience. The circum-
stances we do not know : but so it was, strange as
it may appear, that in 1151, the king was reconciled
to him, and he was at last received by the people of
York, and enthroned with great splendour in the
Cathedral on the Festival of the Conversion of St.
Paul.1 The following Easter he celebrated with
Pope Eugenius at Rome. He governed his diocese
with great zeal and strictness, and was himself a
bright example of purity and holiness of life. The
first thing we find him doing, was to restore at his
own expense the privileges attached to certain
dignities, freedoms and immunities, belonging to
the Cathedral of York,2 which William had sold to
defray the expenses of his continual journeys to
Rome.3 This is a blemish in William's character,
which we would only notice in such a manner as
it is becoming to speak of the imperfections of
a saint ; we will not stop to dwell on it, but
leaving Archbishop Henry in the prudent and well-
ordered government of his diocese, we will return
to William, now no longer surrounded with the
pomp and splendour of the episcopate, but clothed
in the humble garb of a penitent, and wholly
taken up with sorrowing for the failings of his
past life, and doubtless amongst them for that
which we have just mentioned.

1 Dugdale, ubi sup. Godwin, ubi sup. John Hagust. p. 279.

2 " Privilegia dignitatum, libertatum, immunitatum."

3 John Hagust. ubi sup.

CHAPTER IV

ST. WILLIAM IN PENITENCE

WE have now arrived at the most interesting, as
well as the most edifying part of William's history.
Hitherto we have beheld him mixed up more or
less with the world and with worldly ways; living
in king's houses, and clothed in soft apparel,
patronised by the rulers of the earth, but opposed
by one of the chiefest of God's saints : himself
meanwhile endeavouring to retain the position to
which he had been raised, kind indeed, and bene-
volent to the poor, courteous, and possessed of many
amiable qualities, but yet wanting in the chief
characteristics which separate the saint from the
mere ordinary, and if we may so say, the everyday
religious man. Believing nevertheless, as we do,
that William was really innocent of the crimes
brought against him, and that he was what the
world would call a good amiable man, still all will
allow, that what we have as yet seen of his character
is not of that standard and value as would warrant
us in believing that he shared the assembly of those
glorious beings whose memories are cherished by
the Church with so much love and veneration. As
yet he has not given any sign of his future destiny :
making the very most of him as we may, still those

ST. WILLIAM IN PENITENCE 409

wonderful, unearthly, and saint-like qualities, which
in technical language are called " heroic virtue,"
and which the Church requires as an indispensable
requisite, before she decides whether one departed
is to be venerated as a saint, and which, in greater
or less degrees, has always shone forth in the saints
of Holy Church, has not yet been seen in William.
How, then, it may be asked, did he become fit to be
inscribed in the Church's catalogue of saints ? The
answer to this question will best be given by con-
tinuing our account of him ; yet it may be briefly
stated, that it was through the grace of penitence.
He exchanged the golden mitre and the purple robe
for the cowl and serge ; the bed of down, and
tapestried chamber, for the pallet, and the dark and
cold and lonely cell ; the sounds of joy and laugh-
ter, for the tears and groans of a broken and contrite
heart. And thus, incomprehensible and visionary
as it may seem to the mere man of sense, he pre-
pared himself to be a meet recipient for that glorious
crown that fadeth not away.

After having spent some time in Sicily, William
returned to England, and at once gave evident
proof that his mind was made up as to his future
course and mode of life. His uncle, the Bishop
of Winchester, still the man of the world, and
therefore heedless of the Pope's decision respect-
ing his nephew, received him at Winchester, as
though he were still archbishop, with much pomp
and splendour. He offered him one of his man-
sions, and commanded that all his own retainers
and household should pay him the same deference
as before ; but William at once perceived the im-

4io LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

propriety of such a course, and, moreover, was
both unfit and unwilling to receive such attentions.
He rejected all the offers of his uncle, and instead
of a palace and many servants, instead of luxury
and comfort, he chose out as his abode some
manor belonging to his uncle, near the monastery
of Winchester, where he resided, though most of
his time was spent in the society of the monks,
in which he took the greatest delight.1 Here his
life was exemplary ; not a murmur or complaint
ever escaped his lips ; nor was he ever heard to
speak against his enemies, and from those who
did speak against them he would always turn away ;
diligent beyond the rest of his companions, he was
constantly employed in study and reading, and yet
was instant and persevering in prayer. In short, to
quote the words of an old historian, " He wished to
do penance for his past sins, and to extinguish by
the abundance of his tears the avenging punish-
ment of future fire." 2

" And thus," to quote again another old writer,3
" was he wholly changed into another man."
How much does this last short sentence imply !
How do the words " wholly changed " reveal to
us the part of his history now under review ! —
"changed into another man," and this by the grace
of penitence, by the practice of true and heartfelt
sorrow and contrition. The worldly man may
laugh at this ; he, indeed, had he been William's
adviser, would have bade him lead a very different

1 Vid. Wharton, Anglia Sacra, pars i. p. 300, et Harpsfeldii, Hist.
Eccl. Angl. p. 397.

2 Bromton, p. 1041. 8 John Hagust. p. 276.

ST. WILLIAM IN PENITENCE 411

life ; he would have had him make the best of it ;
he would have said, " Eat, drink, and be merry."
But William, frail and imperfect as he was, had
not so learned Christ. He felt and acknowledged
that his disgrace was not sent him for nought ; he
received it as the furnace of affliction in which he
was to be tried, and purified of all earthly dross
and alloy, and receiving it as such, he could not
but come forth from it an altered man. He had
not read in vain of her who had sinned greatly,
but who loved much, and therefore was forgiven ;
of her whose tears bedewed her Saviour's feet, and
washed away a load of guilt. Now would the Holy
Hymns, in which he had so often joined, perhaps
without much thought, when the Church in solemn
festival assembles to honour her memory, come
vividly before him, and as he knelt before the altar
of his God, would he pray that he might be cleansed
as Mary Magdalene, and become a devoted follower
of his Lord. And if, in the severe and piercing ex-
amination of his past life, the thought perchance
should come across him that he too had denied his
Saviour, yet would he recall to mind that wondrous
look upon the fallen Apostle, that never-to-be-for-
gotten look which availed to call him, unmindful
of his promises, and the deserter of his Lord, back
to a faithful and devoted service, and made him fit
to become the bearer of the keys of Heaven, the
foundation of the Church, the shepherd of the
sheep. Such thoughts as these, as they flashed
before the contrite penitent, could not but kindle
a cheering ray of hope that even yet he might be-
come a true and faithful servant of the Cross,

412 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

so he fainted not ; for five long years he continued
at the peaceful monastery, steadfast in the exercise
of penance ; constant and unwearied in prayers, and
fastings, and nightly vigils, in the holy round of fast
and festival, and sacred seasons, hoping for nothing,
and desiring nothing but the forgiveness of his past
sins, and grace to serve his Lord faithfully for the
future. And thus in him, as in the holy David and
the blessed St. Peter, and in the loving St. Mary
Magdalene, and in the robber on the Cross, and
in the multitude of those who from the penitent
have risen to the Saint, do we behold the merciful
provisions of the Gospel in the exceeding grace
of penitence. High and unspeakable as are the
privileges and blessings in store, both here and
hereafter, for those who have never sullied by
wilful sin the purity of their baptismal robe, those
on whose foreheads the holy angels still behold
the wondrous sign in all its infant brightness, far
beyond all comparison as is their condition while
on earth, and glorious as will be their reward here-
after, yet we cannot too highly prize, or ever be too
thankful for, the hope held out to penitents. The
tears which gush from the really broken and con-
trite heart, unite in wonderful co-operation with
the blood of the Holy Lamb, to wash, as we may
say, once more the sinful soul ; and though we
dare not presume on this precious means of grace,
still the penitent may cheer himself as he passes on
his mournful and rugged path with the hope that if
he but endure to the end, he may yet be permitted
to join with the Church triumphant in their hymns
of everlasting praise, with those who have washed

ST. WILLIAM IN PENITENCE 413

their robes in the blood of the Lamb, and have
through much tribulation entered into the kingdom
of God. That such was William's blessedness, we
shall give the grounds for believing by-and-by.

But it is now time for us to leave the reflections
which William's penitential life at Winchester sug-
gested, and to pass on to the remainder of his
history. It was in the latter end of the year 1148
that St. WTilliam entered upon his life of penitence.
In the middle of 1153, into which year we must
now introduce the reader, events took place which
brought him forth from his solitude, to appear once
more on the scene of active life. Within a few
months of each other, Pope Eugenius, St.
Bernard, and Henry Murdach departed this life.1
The latter died at Beverley, and was buried in the
Cathedral at York ; in the words of one of the
monks of Fountains, "They loved each other
mutually in their lives, and in death they were not
divided ; leaders of the Lord's flock, pillars of the
house of God, lights of the world." 2 In the room
of Eugenius, one of the cardinals who had been an
earnest supporter of William when his cause was
heard at Rome, was elected Pope, under the title of
Anastasius IV. As soon as the intelligence of the
death of Eugenius and St. Bernard had reached
England, William's friends, considering that now
that two of his chief opponents were no more,
something might be done towards his restoration,
urged upon him the duty of claiming his former

1 Eugenius, July 8 ; St. Bernard, August 20 ; Henry Murdach, Octo-
ber 14. — John Hagust. p. 282 (his history ends here).

2 Dugdale, ubi sup. Cart. Num. 41.

414 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

position.1 Yielding to their entreaties, he left Win-
chester, and went immediately to Rome, where he
presented himself before his former patron, Anas-
tasius, not complaining, or rinding fault with the
sentence passed upon him, but humbly imploring
pity, and, as we may suppose, requesting the Pope
to take his case into consideration. While he was
at Rome, messengers arrived from England with
the news of the death of the Archbishop of York.2
These same messengers conducted William back at
once to York, where on his arrival he found that he
had been elected again by the majority, and the
most worthy part of the Chapter.3 Immediately
upon his re-election, he returned, according to one
historian,4 to Rome, where he was honourably re-
ceived by Hugh, who had just been consecrated
Bishop of Durham, in the room of William de St.
Barbara, on the Vigil of St. Thomas (December
20), and who greatly advanced his cause before
the Pope and Cardinals. This writer relates that
William arrived in Rome on the third day after
Hugh's consecration (December 23). Another, and
perhaps more trustworthy writer,5 gives a different
account, and says that the Bishop of Durham had
left Rome before William's second arrival there,
and while his cause was still pending. But how-
ever this may be, it is certain that Anastasius still
maintained his favourable opinion of William, and
was rejoiced to find that he had again been elected

1 Godwin, p. 231. Bromton, p. 1041.

2 Vid. Acta SS. vita. S. Gul. Jun. viii. sec. 6, 28.

3 Bromton, p. 1041. 4 Gervasius, p. 1375.

6 Gul. Neub. lib. ii. cap. xxvi.

ST. WILLIAM IN PENITENCE 415

by the Chapter. He confirmed most gladly their
election, and presented William with the Pallium,
which, as we have seen, he had never yet obtained.
The Pope and Cardinals treated him with the
greatest kindness, commiserating his old age and
adverse circumstances ; l one Cardinal especially,
of the name of Gregory,2 described as " a man of
great ability and most profound acuteness," investi-
gated his case with much interest. And now,
restored to his former high position, and receiving
from the Holy Pontiff the favour and protection
of his blessing, William set out once more for
England. He arrived at Winchester3 on Holy
Saturday (April 3, 1154), where, having celebrated
the Easter Festival, he pursued his journey (April
13, "post Albas") and hastened to reach his own
city." 4

His journey from Rome to England is remark-
able for the effect he produced upon the inhabitants
of the places through which he passed ; they were
struck with the purity and heavenly character of
his whole demeanour and conversation. The
following anecdote, which is told of him when he
arrived at Canterbury, will show that an opinion of
his sanctity must have been growing up now for
some time, and that it had spread far and wide,
abroad as well as at home. In those days, when
the blessed effects of penance and the discipline
of the Church were acknowledged by all true

1 " Miserante canos."

2 As to who this Gregory was, vid. Acta SS. ubi sup.

3 Bromton, p. 1041 ; Polydore Vergil, lib. xii. p. 210.

4 Gervasius, ubi sup.

416 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

Christians, men would be as it were on the look-out
to hear of or see those who had given themselves
up to the practice of sincere repentance, as persons
for whom the Lord had done great things, whom
only to see was a great privilege, and a most sure
means of self-improvement. Thus we may imagine
the fame of William's life at Winchester had reached
the ears of all earnest and religious men, and they
naturally longed to see him, not as it would be in
these days, to criticise or ridicule, or to pronounce
him a wild enthusiast and fanatic, who knew not
the spirit of the Gospel, but to gaze upon him with
devotion and reverence, if haply they might gain
somewhat of his spirit, and receive from his holy
lips words of comfort and encouragement. The
world puts forward her heroes and men of science,
her philosophers and politicians, and the children
of the world fall down before them and pay them
homage, and in like manner the Church has those
amongst her children whose achievements surpass,
in measure infinite, those of hero or philosopher ;
those who have wrestled against the unseen world,
and have come forth victorious ; those who have
found out the science of the heart and conscience,
who can order and regulate the life of the hidden
man — these are they, even the Saints in all ages,
whom true believers long to see, in whose presence
they joy to dwell, and with whom to hold com-
munion after their earthly course is finished is one
of their greatest privileges and delights. This may
serve to give importance to the otherwise ordinary
story in question, that as soon as William arrived at
Canterbury, Roger, the Archdeacon, who had been

ST. WILLIAM IN PENITENCE 417

exceedingly desirous of seeing him, visited him,
with feelings of the highest reverence and devotion,
and on his taking his departure, William said, in
the hearing of those who stood by, " That man will
be my successor " — which really came to pass.1

On leaving Canterbury, William, as we have
already mentioned, passed a few days at Win-
chester, and thence proceeded straight to York,
where he arrived on the Sunday before the Feast
of the Ascension, May 8, 1154. There, however, a
new sort of opposition awaited him. His old
enemies were by God's grace indeed his friends ;
they had opposed him in the days of his splendour,
because a king had endeavoured to force him upon
the Church of Christ, and because he was identified
with a secular party, headed by a worldly prelate,
by whose means Theobald, the Primate of England,
had become an exile. Now the scene had changed ;
he had come back indeed with the rich robes which
he had worn of old, but his heart and his treasure
were now in heaven ; St. Bernard was there also ;
but there remained on earth the other section of his
opponents. None must be startled by their virulent
and bitter hatred. The state of the higher secular
clergy of the age was miserable ; an author of the
time declares that the greater number of the bishops
\vere mere military prelates ; one alone he mentions
as a courageous asserter of the rights of the Church,
the holy Bishop of Hereford.2 This account will
prepare us for the depravity of a portion of the
cathedral clergy. The party in York who were still

1 Stubbs, p. 1722. Bromton et Gul. Neub.
3 Gesta Stephani ap. Duchesne, Hist. Norm. Script.
VOL. IV. 2 D

*.*.

4i8 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

opposed to him, headed by Osbert, the Archdeacon,
his old enemy, and by the Dean of the Cathedral,1
endeavoured to prevent his entrance into the city,
and appealed to the authorities of the Chapter
against him. He proceeded, however, notwith-
standing this attempted opposition, and was re-
ceived with much solemnity and very great
rejoicings, .both by the clergy and people. His
opponents then attempted to gain their point by
applying to Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury,
who at this time held the office of Legate, but their
attempts proved fruitless.

His entrance into York was marked by a very
wonderful occurrence,2 which tended in no small de-
gree to exalt him in the eyes of the people, who were
already devotedly attached to him. The whole
city had come out to welcome the archbishop,
and as they returned, and William was preceding
them, the impetuous multitude rushed headlong
on to an old wooden bridge,3 built over the
river Ouse, which runs by the city of York, and
over which they had to cross to get back again into
the city. William, at the head of the crowd, had
passed over the bridge, but as the people were
upon it, the piers gave way, from the immense
pressure, and the mass of the people, which con-
sisted of a great number of women and children,
were carried away into the stream. Fearful must
have been the sight ; universal destruction seemed
inevitable. William was soon aware of what had

1 Gul. Neub. ubi sup.

3 Bromton, p. 1041. Stubbs, p. 1722. Polydore Vergil, ubi sup.
8 Drake's Antiq. of York, bk. ii. ch. i. p. 418.

ST. WILLIAM IN PENITENCE 419

taken place ; he stopped, and turning himself to-
wards the river, made the sign of the Cross over
the drowning multitude, and bursting into tears,
he prayed fervently that Almighty God would not
permit so many lives to be cut off on his account.
His prayers were heard, for not a single soul
perished.1

William entered York amidst the most rapturous
rejoicings of the people, and began at once to look
into the affairs of his diocese, which he governed with
great moderation and mildness. One of the first
things he did was to visit the Abbey of Fountains ;
for he had promised at the command of the Pope,
to make full restitution to the abbey and its inmates
for the injuries and losses they had received on his
account,2 and that he would take the place and its
inhabitants under his especial pastoral superin-
tendence, and would treat them with the most
paternal affection. Doubtless he would have per-
formed his promise faithfully, had time been allowed
him. He went, however, to Fountains in great
humility, and promised to make entire satisfaction
to the brotherhood. He confirmed them in all the
possessions with which his predecessors had en-
dowed the abbey, and having given to every one
the kiss of peace, he returned for the last time to
York, where, in a few days, he was removed sud-
denly from the world, and translated to regions of
blissful peace and quiet. The account of his death

1 A chapel was built upon this bridge, dedicated to St. William, and
which was standing until the Reformation. — Drake, bk. i. chap. vii.

P- 235.

2 Dugdale Monast, Angl., vol. v. p. 303. Cart. Num. xlii.

420 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

is related with great simplicity by one of the old
York chroniclers,1 as follows : " Shortly afterwards
the Holy Prelate William prepared himself solemnly
to celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity, that by
the taking of the Heavenly Bread he might offer
himself as an acceptable service to the One God in
Trinity (uni. et trino Deo). Having finished the
mysteries of this great solemnity, he was suddenly
seized with severe sickness; he returned to his
palace, and gave orders that an abundant feast
should be set before his guests. While they were
feasting in great splendour, the Blessed Father
retired to his chamber, and there foretold to his
attendants by the spirit of prophecy the day of his
decease. For eight days he continued worn out
by a violent fever ; he permitted none but the hand
of an heavenly physician to administer any reme-
dies to him. On the ninth day of his illness, and
the thirtieth from his arrival in York, on the 8th
day of June, in the year 1154, and the thirtieth year
of King Stephen's reign, having bade farewell to
his brethren, he finished his earthly life in his
palace at York, about to receive from the Lord an
eternal mansion. He was buried in the Church
of St. Peter ; in which place most salutiferous oil
flowed from his remains, by which Almighty God
was pleased to work through his merits many
miracles on the sick."

This is indeed the death of the righteous, which
all would envy. It must not however be concealed
that a mystery hung over the deathbed of St.

1 Stubbs, ubi sup.

ST. WILLIAM IN PENITENCE 421

William. A report at the time prevailed in Eng-
land that he died by poison, put into the sacred
chalice by his inveterate enemies.1 The idea is
most revolting, for though his gentle spirit passed
away in peace, the notion that such wickedness
should have been upon the earth is very dreadful.
At this distance of time when we look upon the
evidence dispassionately, the report seems on the
whole to have been false ; but in the first burst of
grief after his death, it was generally believed : the
mention of it even occurs in one of the hymns
which were sung in his honour. This proves at all
events the idea which men had of the terrible ran-
cour and wickedness of his enemies in the Chapter.
Even some of those who attended on his deathbed,
as will appear, believed it so far as judicially to accuse
Osbert the Archdeacon. A contemporary writer,2
however, of great credit, examined thoroughly the
whole affair, and his conclusion was that the report
was false. He represents it as a mere conjecture,
which nevertheless the common people, ever prone
to terrible stories, soon spread abroad as an un-
doubted fact. Some time after St. William's death,
when the report still prevailed, the writer above
mentioned examined with solemn adjurations an
old monk of Rievaux, who had been on terms of
great intimacy with the Canons of York, and also
with the archbishop himself. He was at this time

1 Hoveden, Script, post Bed. p. 490, says, " post perceptionem
Eucharistiae infra ablut tones liquore lethali extinctus est." This would
imply not that he was poisoned in receiving the Blood of the Lord in
the Holy Eucharist, but that poison was put into the water with which
the priest rinses the sacred chalice, and which he drinks,

2 William of Newbridge, lib. ii. c. 26.

422 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

of a great age, suffering from severe sickness, and
very near his end : he solemnly declared that it
was a mere false report, for that he was present
himself at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist,
and that it was quite impossible that any enemy
could have had the opportunity of committing such
a deed. He also declared that it was untrue that
St. William, when his attendants supposed he had
been poisoned, refused to take an antidote,1 for he
knew well from divine authority that God was not
to be tempted. The same writer asserts that he
heard one Symphoriantis, a cleric, who was St.
William's constant companion, and who had waited
on him with the greatest devotion during his illness,
declare that at the persuasion of his friends, St.
William took an antidote, and also that the chief
reason why they supposed he had been poisoned
was, that his teeth, which were naturally very white,
turned quite black during his last moments, but
that the physicians laughed at such a notion, as it
frequently happened with dying persons that their
teeth turned black at the last. The only thing
which weakens William of Newbridge's testimony
is that there is a letter from John of Salisbury 2 to
Pope Alexander III., respecting the trial of Osbert
the Archdeacon, for the murder of St. William,
in which this same Symphorianus appears as the
accuser. Osbert claiming to be tried in an ecclesi-
astical instead of a civil court, King Stephen refused
to allow it. The case was delayed to the reign of

1 That he did refuse it is asserted by Alberic. — Historiens de France,
vol. 13, p. 698.

2 V. Joann. Sarisb. Ep. 108, no, in, 122, inter Ep, Pappe Silvest. ii.

ST. WILLIAM IN PENITENCE 423

Henry II., who with difficulty consented. On the
day of the trial, as far as can be made out, Osbert
failed to establish his innocence by compurgation,
the ordinary mode of inquest — that is, he could not
muster a sufficient number of men to swear that
they believed him innocent ; on which he appealed
to Rome. What became of the cause we have not
been able to discover, though perhaps some un-
published records may some day throw light upon
it. On the point in question, however, it may be
observed, that this account of Symphorianus does
not contradict the facts which William of New-
bridge professes to have heard from him ; it only
proves that he drew a different conclusion from
them. This again strengthens William's testimony,
for it shows that he took his premises from a
person who was biassed the other way. On
the whole, his unprejudiced opinion inclines us
strongly to believe that the horrible crime existed
only in imagination.

CHAPTER V

ST. WILLIAM IN THE CALENDAR

WILLIAM'S death was deeply felt by the people of
York. From first to last, in his prosperity and in
his adversity, as Treasurer, as an exile from them,
as their bishop he had always been greatly beloved.
He had been to them a father indeed, and sorely
felt was their bereavement of one whom they
fondly hoped might have been spared to them yet
many years. The miraculous preservation of the
people on his entrance into York had produced
amongst them a feeling of the deepest veneration,
in addition to their pre-existing affection for him ;
they could not but feel that a supernatural power
was with one whom they looked upon as the divine
instrument of so wonderful a deliverance, and as
time went on their devotion to him increased. The
father to his son, the grandfather to his grandson,
would tell the praises of their good archbishop, and
thus through the succeeding generation was he al-
ready really, though not formally or ecclesiastically,
honoured as one who was sharing the company of
the Saints at rest. At length in the year 1223,
seventy years after his death, his fame had become
so great from the miracles1 which were wrought

1 Drake's Antiq. of York, bk. ii. ch. ii. p. 481.

4*4

LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM 425

at his tomb, that the Dean and Chapter of York
petitioned Honorius III., who was then Pope,1 that
he might be canonised and honoured with the rest
of the Saints of the Church. Witnesses were sent
to Rome to be examined concerning the miracles,
and as an instance of the great care which is taken
by the Church in the process of canonisation, we
may remark that the accounts of the first set of
witnesses were not considered sufficient,2 and the
clergy of York were commanded to send fresh
witnesses, and to make a second examination con-
cerning the alleged miracles. How very solemn
and awful a matter the Church considers the act
of canonization to be, will appear from the Bull of
Pope Honorius, from which we take the following
extract. After a kind of general introduction it
runs as follows : 3 —

" Our venerable brother the Archbishop, and our
beloved children the Dean and Chapter of York,
having petitioned in season and out of season that
we should ascribe in the Catalogue of Saints in the
Church Militant, William of sacred memory, whom
we doubt not is greatly honoured by the Lord
in the Church Triumphant,4 inasmuch as it hath
appeared by the testimony of many creditable
persons, that so greatly did the grace of his merits

1 Breviarium Ebor. 1493. In fest Trans. S. Gul. Lectio I.

2 Benedict XIV. De Canoniz. lib. ii. ch. 49 ; also Raynaldi contin.
ad Baron, an. 1223. Bull. Magn. an. 1222. Ep. 62.

3 Bullarium Magnum Rom. A.D. 1226.

4 Drake, bk. ii. ch. i. 419, mentions one Stephen Mauley, Arch-
deacon of Cleveland, as being instrumental in the canonization, but he
is incorrect in the name of the Pope, whom he says was Nicholas, as
also does the Rev. Alban Butler.

426 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

shine forth, that the Lord vouchsafed to work many
miracles through him, and after his decease granted
that many more should be wrought through his
remains ; yet, although we believe the above testi-
monies, and by no means discredit the truth of his
daily increasing celebrity, and would willingly grant
the prayer of our petitioners, still, forasmuch as in
so sacred and divine a work, we could not proceed
without much serious consideration, we have caused
a diligent examination to be made several times by
appointed persons, both into the life and also into
the miracles of the above-named Saint : for although
in proof of the existence of sanctity, the perfection
of charity is sufficient, yet for its public mani-
festation the declaration ' exhibitio ' " of miracles
must be required, and this because, some do their
good works before men to be seen of them, and
because the devil transforming himself into an
Angel of light is continually deceiving men. Where-
fore when the above-mentioned examiners, having
conferred continually with credible witnesses on
these points, and having examined them in the
appointed manner, did fully, clearly, and faithfully
relate unto us the course of this Saint's most holy
life, and also the many and great miracles by which
the Lord after his decease caused him to be cele-
brated ; we, carefully considering that such a light
was not to be hid under a bushel, but to be set
upon a candlestick, since besides other miracles
(which it would be too long to enumerate severally)
his tomb was enriched with abundant oil,1 with

1 " Olei ubertate pinguescat."

IN THE CALENDAR 427

which many sick were anointed and healed of
their infirmities ; and also (which we must not pass
over in silence), he had raised three persons from
the dead, had given sight to five blind, one of whom
having been conquered in a single combat, and
condemned to lose his sight,1 came to the tomb of
the Saint and called upon him, and earnestly be-
sought that his sight might be restored unto him, of
which he knew he had been unjustly deprived — we,
in the presence and with the consent of our breth-
ren, and other Prelates who were present at our
Council, have ascribed, or rather commanded him
to be ascribed in the Catalogue of Holy Confessors,
decreeing that his Festival be yearly celebrated on
the anniversary of his death.

" Wherefore that ye may prove yourselves grate-
ful for such favour, as is fit, we exhort and warn
you all, commanding you seriously by our Apostolic
decrees, that ye keep the Festival and memory of
this Saint with due veneration, and that ye ask for
his prayers in faith to the Lord of Hosts, for your-
selves, and other the faithful in Christ. We also,
confiding in the grace of God, and in the merits of
the above-named Saint, do mercifully grant unto
all who shall devoutly assemble on his Festival in
the Church of York, a relaxation for fifty days of
the penance which may be imposed upon them.
" Dated at the Later an } on the iSth of March, in
the tenth year of our Pontificate, A.D. 1226."

Thus was St. William, after many trials and great
i " In duello devictus et damnatus."

428 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

reverses, at length solemnly inscribed in the Church's
Calendar: and if it be asked how one, against
whom so great a Saint as St. Bernard was opposed
as a most determined enemy, was fit to be canonised
and honoured by the faithful in Christ, we can-
not do better than quote the words of Pope Bene-
dict the . fourteenth in answer to this question.1
Having, in treating of the causes which may stand
in the way of a person's reputation of sanctity,
brought forward by way of illustration the case of
St. William, and having given shortly the account
of his deposition and restoration to the See of York,
Pope Benedict continues in the following words :
" Wherefore, if the above-mentioned letters of St.
Bernard could not prevent his (St. William's) can-
onization, which neither prevented that of the
writer, seeing he had favoured that which he con-
sidered to be a most righteous cause, deceived by
the false insinuation of those, of the truth of whose
opinion he had not the slightest doubt : on which
account too he did not hesitate to affirm in his
letters, that he had sometimes been deceived by
the accounts of those in power ; — it appears that we
may conclude concerning the point in question,
that it neither does, nor ought to stand in the way
of any person's sanctity, if charges are laid against
him by any (however important) writer or historian,
so often as these charges shall be removed by a
legitimate judge, by a formal sentence, or by that
which is equivalent to such a sentence."

And thus we cannot be charged with presumption

1 De Canoniz. lib, i. cap. 41, sec. 13. " De his qua fama sanctitatis
obstare possunt"

IN THE CALENDAR 429

if we follow Pope Benedict, and say that as far as
regards the charge of simony, or any other great
crimes, we must think St. Bernard was misinformed
respecting St. William. As to the character of the
latter, before his life of penitence at Winchester, we
have said already that there were many points in it
which were far from being consistent with one who
was hereafter to adorn the Church's Calendar : but
we may surely believe that whatever was earthly
and of base alloy, was purified and cleansed by
those contrite and heartfelt tears l which he shed as
a penitent during his retreat at Winchester, and his
history cannot fail to teach us this great lesson, that
true penitence is, as it were, a plank to the ship-
wrecked soul, to which, if it do but cling in calm
and steady faith, it may yet, after much tribulation
through many a storm and tempest, reach the
haven of the heavenly land, and be permitted to
dwell with those whose course had been through
life free from the shoals and quicksands of wilful
sin.

Our narrative now passes into the year 1283. A
custom had prevailed in the Church, even before
the time of Constantine (and after him it was much
more common), of translating the remains of those
whom the Church honoured as saints from the
original place in which they had been buried to
some more important and conspicuous spot.2 After

1 Vid. Bromton.

- In Constantine's time the bodies of St. Andrew and St. Timothy
were translated. Vid. Carmen xi. Paulini in Nat. S. Felix, Muratori
Anecd. torn. I ; also Du Fresne Constant. Christ, lib. iv. ch. 5 ; also
Benedict xiv. De Canoniz. lib. iv. ch. xxii. et seq. " de Translatione
Corporuni"

430 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

the canonisation of St. William, when miracles still
continued to be wrought at his tomb, a great desire
prevailed from time to time amongst the clergy of
York to remove his remains, which at present were
buried under a very plain, unsightly tomb, to some
more prominent place in the cathedral, and to build
over them a shrine1 which in its costliness and
magnificence might in some degree correspond
with the celebrity and glory of the saint. It was
not, however, until 1283 that this desire was carried
into effect William Wykwane was then Arch-
bishop of York : - he had been elected in the
summer of 1279, and consecrated on the igth of
September that same year, by Pope Nicholas III.,
at Rome. He, together with one Antony de Bek,
the bishop-elect of Durham, were the chief pro-
moters of the translation, the whole expenses of
which were defrayed solely by the latter.3 Antony
was not yet consecrated, and, considering that
greater solemnity would be added to his consecra-
tion if it could be performed on the same day as
the translation, and hoping thereby to connect
himself more closely with St. William, it was
arranged that both ceremonies should take place
on the Qth of January. It was determined that the
occasion should be marked by the greatest splen-

1 This shrine was demolished at the Reformation. Drake, in 1723,

examined the spot which tradition said was the place of the saint's

grave ; for the particulars of this examination, which seems to have

been made with more of an antiquarian than devotional spirit, see his

'Antiquities of York," bk. ii. ch. i. p. 420.

3 Stubbs, p. 1727.

1 Vid. Brev. Ebor, 1493, Lectiones in Fest. Transl, S. Gul. Ebor.
Archiep

IN THE CALENDAR 431

dour and magnificence, and, for this purpose, King
Edward I. and his Queen Eleanor, together with
all the nobility and chief officers, ecclesiastical as
well as civil, of the whole of England, were invited
to assist at the solemnity. Clergy from all parts
were summoned, and eleven bishops were present
on the occasion. It was much feared that the king
and queen would not be able to attend, partly on
account of the severity of the weather, but chiefly
because the king and his barons were especially
occupied with the settling and disposing of Wales,
which country had just been conquered. The
king, however, was most anxious to be present,
and an accident, which happened to him a short
time before his departure for York, increased his
anxiety and made him quite determined to go
there : "It happened" (we quote the words of the
Lection used in the office for the festival of the
translation) " it happened that on a certain day he
was mounting a steep place, and when he arrived
on the summit, he fell down from an immense
height, so that it was thought by his attendants,
who were naturally amazed at what had happened,
that his whole body must have been dashed to
pieces. The king, however, rose up immediately,
not in the least injured, and gave thanks to Almighty
God and St. William, imputing his fall to the enemy
of mankind, and his preservation to the merits of
the glorious confessor he had determined to honour.
From that day so great a desire possessed him to
honour St. William, that he set out quickly for
York, and hastened in rapid journeys to reach the
city."

432 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

It was now \vithin two days of the time fixed
for the translation, and on the eve of the 8th of
January, the Archbishop and Antony de Bek,
attended by the dean and canons of the cathedral,
entered the church in silence and late at night, to
make preparations for the opening of the tomb ;
having chanted litanies and poured forth many
prayers for help and assistance, they prostrated them-
selves in much humility before the tomb, and after
continuing some time in prayer, they commenced
their work. Having removed a large stone which
was placed upon the coffin, they found the body
of the holy bishop habited in the sacred vestments
in which he had been buried. These were found
to be, both by sight and touch, covered with
oil which had exuded from his sacred remains.1
Removing the patten and chalice which had
been placed next to the body in the tomb, the Arch-
bishop and Antony de Bek, with others who were
considered from their character fit for so sacred a
work, beginning at the head, collected and rolled
up the sacred relics with due reverence and devo-
tion, and placed them in a small chest. They then
carried it most devoutly on their shoulders to a
secret place in the cathedral, wrhich they sealed,
and leaving a guard there, they departed in silence.
The next morning, when it was quite light, they
returned, and unlocked the chest, and having taken
out the holy relics, handling them with the most
minute reverence, they separated them from the
ecclesiastical vestments, which they put by them-

1 Vid. S. Basil Horn, in S. Julittam Martyrem, t. ii. p. 35 ; S. Greg.
Turon, lib. i. ch, 30 ; De Gloria Martyrum.

IN THE CALENDAR 433

selves, but the vestments belonging to the body
itself, together with it they placed in a chest pre-
pared with great care for the purpose. This they
sealed and guarded. All was now ready for the
completion of the translation. Before, however, the
hour for the ceremony had arrived, a remarkable
event took place, which we will relate in the words
of the Lection read on this Festival, and which is
the fifth in order.1 "On the following day, while
the matins were being solemnly chanted for the
Translation of St. William's remains, in order that
the solemnity might be rendered more remarkable,
Almighty God magnified His Saint by a wonderful
miracle. For as certain of the Canons' servants
who had come with their masters into the Cathedral
were sleeping in the Choir, one of them had re-
clined his head on the foot of the pulpit from which
the Gospel was wont to be read, and behold, during
the reading of the third Lection, one of the columns
of no small weight chanced to give way, and fell
upon him, so that his head lay pressed down be-
tween the fallen pillar and the foot of the pulpit.
When those who were present saw it, they ran to
raise up the stone, supposing that his head was
irremediably shattered. But he rose up, felt no
injury, and loosing a band which was tied round
his head, he found that it had been pierced through
on either side by the upper and the lower stone,
and was bitten through as it were with teeth, so
that it was the more manifest to all that beheld it,
that it was the work of Providence that when the

1 Brev. Ebor. ubi sup.
VOL. IV. 2 E

434 LIFE OF ST. WILLIAM

band which enclosed his head had been so broken,
he himself should have escaped unhurt. The
servant gave thanks to Almighty God and St.
William for his preservation, believing, and not
without reason, that through his merits he had
escaped so great a danger."

On the morning of the Qth of January, the
cathedral was filled with those who had thronged
from all parts to be present at the Festival. The
king and queen, and a very large attendance of
lords and barons, together with the eleven bishops
and their clergy, increased the splendour and mag-
nificence of the scene. The sermon having been
preached by the archbishop, the king himself and
all the bishops present carried the chest which
contained the sacred relics round part of the choir,
with the greatest reverence and devotion, and thus
the body of William was with great rejoicing and
due solemnity translated from an obscure into a
lofty place, from the common burying-ground into
the choir.1 As soon as the Office for the Transla-
tion was finished, the archbishop solemnly conse-
crated Antony de Bek Bishop of Durham, and thus
ended the solemnities which doubtless for many
generations were remembered as some of the most
remarkable that had ever taken place in York.

Many miracles took place after the Translation,
the most remarkable of which were told to the
clergy, and recorded, the account of them forming
the remainder of the Lessons read on the Festival
of the Translation. This was appointed to be kept

1 " Ab imo in altum, a communi loco, in Chorum."

IN THE CALENDAR 435

yearly on the first Sunday after the Epiphany, St.
William's day being celebrated on the 8th of June,
the day on which he died. We cannot perhaps
close our narrative in a better way than presenting
the reader with the Collect which is used on the
Festival of the Translation, and which clearly shows
the thoughts and spirit which the Church wished
should accompany such ceremonies, and which
they were intended to produce in the minds of
sincere and pious worshippers.

"Almighty and merciful God, who hast shown
the body of William, thy glorious Confessor and
Bishop, which was buried in the depth of the
earth, to be worthy of exaltation ; grant that we
celebrating his Translation, may be translated
from this valley of misery to Thy heavenly king-
dom, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

APPENDIX I.

ON THE QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE BETWEEN THE
SEES OF CANTERBURY AND YORK.

ONE of the ancient chroniclers1 relates that Theobald,
Archbishop of Canterbury, would not give his consent
to St. William's election ; but it does not appear whether
this was owing to the circumstances of the election, or,
which is the most likely, to the old feelings of jealousy,
which had for so long a time existed between the two
metropolitan sees of England. Though it would be
beside our purpose to enter into the respective merits
of the two sees, and to determine which was right and
which was wrong, yet it may not be uninteresting to the
reader to be put in possession of the state of the quarrel,
as far as it had proceeded, up to the time of our narrative,
which we will now do, having reserved it for a note. The
old constitution, ordained by Gregory the Great, in the
time of Paulinus, the first Archbishop of York, was, that
the two sees should be counted of equal dignity, but that
whichever Primate had been consecrated first, should
take precedence of the other, preside at councils, &c,
and in the case of the death of one, the survivor should
consecrate the successor, and in the interim, should exercise
all the archiepiscopal functions within the province of
the defunct. As instances of this, Honorius, fifth Arch-

1 Gervasii Act. Pontif. Cantuar. ap. Twysden, p. 1665.
436

APPENDIX 437

bishop of Canterbury,1 was consecrated by Paulinus,
Archbishop of York ; and afterwards Bosa, fourth primate
of that see, was consecrated by Theodore, Archbishop of
Canterbury. This constitution of Pope Gregory continued
until the time of the Conquest, but when Lanfranc was
appointed to the vacant see of Canterbury by the
Conqueror, and Thomas, a canon of Bayeux, to that of
York, a contest for the supremacy arose between them,
which lasted with unwearied vehemence between several
of their successors. Lanfranc demanded of Thomas, as
his undoubted and long-established right, profession of
obedience. This Thomas would by no means be induced
to pay, upon which both Archbishops set out to Rome,
to plead each one his cause before the Pontiff. The
Pope referred them to a council of all the Bishops and
Abbots of England, and upon their return, the subject
was first discussed during the Easter Festival, before the
king, in the royal chapel at Winchester, and afterwards
at Windsor,2 where, at a council held during Whitsuntide
(1072), it was finally determined, in the presence of the
Legate of the Apostolic See, the king and queen, and of
all the Bishops and Abbots of the kingdom : —

1. That the Church of York ought to be subject to
that of Canterbury; and the Archbishop of York to pay
obedience to the Archbishop of Canterbury in all things
pertaining to Christian religion, as primate of all Britain.

2. That if the Archbishop of Canterbury called a
Council wheresoever he pleased, the Archbishop of York
with his Suffragans ought to be present, and give obedience
to what should be determined.

And 3. That the Archbishop of York ought to make
profession of canonical obedience under an oath to the
Archbishop of Canterbury.

1 Stubbs, Act. Pontif. Ebor. ap. Twysden, p. 1687.
2 Wilkins, Concilia, vol. i. p. 324.

438 APPENDIX

The oath, however, was dispensed with in the case of
Thomas, through favour of the king. To the above de-
terminations Thomas submitted, and affixed his signature ;
it is said that they were carried owing to the king's
partiality for Lanfranc, and that Thomas was under great
disadvantages in arguing against his opponent, from not
having the ancient charters and privileges of the see of
York to refer to, for these had been destroyed in a fire
just before his promotion to the see. Notwithstanding
the decision of the Council of Windsor, the three succeed-
ing Archbishops of York — Gerard, Thomas II., and
Thurstan — refused to pay obedience to the Primate of
Canterbury ; the former two yielded reluctantly after a
time, but Thurstan stood out as long as he held the see,
and never would consent to pay the required profession ;
on the contrary, he felt so strongly about the matter, that
he went to Rome and pleaded the cause of his see with
such success before the Pope, that the Church of York
again raised her head to an equality with her sister of
Canterbury, and received back her ancient privileges.
Honorius II. granted a Bull of exemption to Thurstan l
and his successors, by which he confirmed to the see of
York its ancient dignity, and prohibited the Archbishop
of Canterbury from exacting any profession of obedience
from the see of York, or York from requiring the like
from Canterbury ; he also confirmed the constitution of
Gregory which we have mentioned above, and decreed
that if the Archbishop of Canterbury would not gratis,
and without exaction of obedience, consecrate the elect
Archbishop of York, that then the said elect should be
consecrated by his own Suffragans, or else by the Roman
Pontiff himself.

We may here observe that the confirmation of the

1 Wilkins, ubi sup. p. 407. Eadmer, Hist. Nov. lib. iv. See also
Drake's Antiq. of York, bk. ii. ch. i. p. 403, 413-417, and ch. iii.

APPENDIX 439

election of a Bishop, by which is meant the approbation
of his nomination, was in the early ages of the Church the
right of the Metropolitan and his Suffragans.1 Afterwards
the right of approving and determining whether elections
were canonical or not belonged to the Metropolitan only.
This continued so for thirteen centuries, and the Decretals
of Gregory IX., A.D. 1227, speak of it as the common law
of the Church. Afterwards by the reservation of particular
cases for the decision of the Apostolic See,2 the old customs
of canonical election were to a certain degree abolished,
and the Metropolitan's right of confirming the elections of
Bishops was taken away from him and reserved for the
Pope : 8 the reason for this being that when the right of
nominating and appointing Bishops belonged to the Pope
alone, it seemed unfit that this nomination should be con-
firmed by one who was under his authority. All these
alterations were after the time of the foregoing history, yet
it seems probable that though not regularly sanctioned by
a decree of the Church, new rules and customs were being
gradually introduced with respect to the relative authority
of the Pope and particular Metropolitans. Whether in the
case of William, the Bishop of Winchester used his Lega-
tine authority beyond its just limits, or whether the Arch-
bishop's consent was actually necessary, or how far so, we
need not here inquire.

1 Vid. Concil. Nicen. Can. iv.

2 Van Espen, vol. i. De Confirm. Episcop. Ferrarius, Bibl. Prompt,
art. Confirmatio.

9 Thomassin, p. u, lib, ii. ch. xxix. xxx.

440 APPENDIX

APPENDIX II.

ON THE PALLIUM.

It may be interesting to the reader to give a short
account of the Pallium, of which we have heard in the
foregoing history, and of the privileges annexed to its
possession.

The Pallium is a part of the Pontifical dress worn only
by the Pope, Archbishops, and Patriarchs.1 It is a white
woollen band of about three fingers' breadth, made round,
and worn over the shoulders, crossed in front, with one
end of it hanging down over the breast, the other behind ;
it is ornamented with purple crosses, and fastened by three
golden needles, or pins ; it is made of the wool of perfectly
white sheep, which are yearly on the festival of St. Agnes
offered and blessed at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist,
in the Church dedicated to her in the Nomentan Way in
Rome. The sheep are received by two Canons of the
Church of St. John Lateran, who deliver them into the
charge of the Subdeacons of the Apostolic College, and
they then are kept and fed by them until the time for
shearing them arrives. The Palliums are always made of
this wool, and when made, they are brought to the Church
of St. Peter and St. Paul, and are placed upon the Altar
over their tomb, on the eve of their Festival, and are there
left the whole night, and on the following day are delivered
to the Subdeacons, whose office it is to take charge of them.
The Pope alone always wears the Pallium, and wherever
he officiates, to signify his supreme authority over all other
particular Churches. Archbishops and Patriarchs receive

1 Bona de Reb. Liturg. i. 24.

APPENDIX 441

it from him, and cannot wear it except in their own
churches, and only on certain great festivals, when they
celebrate the Mass. This St. Gregory the Great declares
to have been of very ancient origin.1

An Archbishop, although he be consecrated as Bishop
and have taken possession, cannot, before he has petitioned
for and received the Pallium,2 either call himself Arch-
bishop, or perform such acts as belong to the "Greater
Jurisdiction," those, namely, which he exercises not as a
Bishop, but as Archbishop, such as to summon a council,
or to visit his province, &c., &c. He can, however, when
his election has been confirmed, and before he receives the
Pallium, depute his functions in the matter of ordaining
Bishops to his Suffragans, who may lawfully exercise them
by his command. If, however, an Archbishop, before he
receives the Pallium, perform those offices which result
immediately from the possession of it, such as for instance
those relating to orders, and to the Chrism, &c., &c., the
acts themselves are valid, but the Archbishop offends
against the Canons and Laws of the Church.

The days on which Archbishops and Patriarchs may
wear the Pallium are : Nativitas Domini, Fest. St. Joannis,
St. Stephani, Circumcisio, Epiphania, Dom. Palmarum,
Ccena Domini, Sab. Sanctum, Tres dies Resurrectionis,
Ascens. Domini, Tres dies Pentecostes, Fest. S. Joannis
Bapt., et omn. Apostolorum, Quatuor Fest. B. M. V., S.
Michaelis, Omnium SS., Dies Dedicationis Ecclesise, Con-
secrationis Episcoporum, Ordinationis Clericorum, Dies
Anniversarius Ipsius Palliati, atque Festivitates principales
suae Cathedralis Ecclesiae.

1 Lib. ii. Ep. 54.
2 Ferrarius, Bibl. Prompt, in art. Pallium.

VOL. IV. 2 F

NOTES.

P. 375. Baronius relates St. William's case at length. His first
account is, that St. William was fully guilty of the charges brought
against him ; and then he retracts, and says nearly the same thing as
Pope Benedict, that St. Bernard was mistaken, having been mis-
informed, £c. Pagi Critica in Baron, is very decided in favour of St.
William; and Pope Benedict XIV. says: "Anastasius IV. S. P. in
sedem suam Ebor ; restituit Willielmum et ad eum Pallium misit,
comperta ejus innocentia ut Pagius narrat. torn. ii. breviarii Rom.
Pontif. in vita praedict. Anast. IV. Luc. II. et Eugenius III." We
may here observe that neither Baronius, Pagi, nor Pope Benedict
are correct in their details of the history.

P. 410. In the "Annales Wintoniensis Ecclesise,"auctore Monacho
Winton. in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, pars i. p. 300, there is the fol-
lowing notice of St. William's exile, and of his life at Winchester : —

"A.D. 1147. Exulatus est Archiepiscopus Ebor. Willielmus ab
Archiepiscopatu suo ; Henricus autem Wintoniensis Episcopus propter
sanctitatem ejus, et quia eum ordinaverat et consecraverat, honorifice
eum in domum suam suscepit cum suis, et necessaria sicut sibi et suis
invenit. Ille autem, quantum potuit, et quantum passus est Henricus
Episcopus, cum Monachis Wintoniensibus fuit, et illorum sanctitatem
tanquam Angelorum dilexit, comedens et bibens cum illis, et in
Dormitorio illorum dormiens.

"A.D. 1154. Wms. Archiepiscop. Ebor. pacificatus suis, mediante
Episcopo Henrico, cum reversus esset de exilio, veneno extinctus est,
ut fertur ab Archidiacono suo, misso veneno in calice suo."

P. 410. The only mention that is made of St. William's penitence
is by John of Hexham and Bromton, on whose short account we
have ventured to ground and draw out this part of his history.

P. 42$. Vid. Benedict XIV. de Canoniz. lib. i. cap. 39. "De
differentiis inter Beatificationem et Canonizationem." St. William

442

NOTES 443

probably was honoured as Beatus in the Diocese of York, soon after
his death. His Canonisation was binding on the whole Church, as
Pope Benedict mentions. He says that although the Bulls were made
out to special persons, this did not prevent the Canonisation extending
through the whole Church.

P. 426. Pope Benedict, lib. ii. cap. 49. " De Testium examine."
"Item, quid erit dicendum in hypothesi in qua testes prsedicto modo
deposuissent, hoc est, modo confuso et non explanato ? Erit ne locus
repetitioni ? Repetitio profecto hoec olim erat in usu. S. P. Honorius
III. visa relatione judicum, quibus inquisitionem demandaverat in
citata causa Canonizationis S. Gullielmi. Arch, sic eis rescripsit uti
legitur apud Raynaldum," ad an. 1224, § 47. " Ut igitur quod in hoc
negligenter omissum est, per subsequentem diligentiam emendetur ;
discretioni vestrae per Apostolica scripta mandamus, quatenus vel
dicta testium receptorum sub vestris sigillis per fideles nuntios ad
nostram praesentiam, destinetis, vel inquisitionem solemnem iterum
facientes, nobis plane ac plenarie, quae singuli testes deposuerint
rescribatis."

P. 427. Pope Benedict XIV. de Canoniz. lib. iv. pars I, has a long
chapter (xxxi.), " De liquoribus aliquando manantibus e Corporibus,
Reliquiis, et Sepulcris Sanctorum." He quotes § 19, St. Basil. Horn,
in Julittam Martyrem (t. 2, p. 35), "aquam laudibus extollit ex ejus
sepulcro manantem;" also St. Greg. Turon. lib. i. cap. 30, "De
Gloria Martyrum. testatur suo tempore profluvium mannae salutaris,
e sepulcro S. Joanni's Evang. dimanasse. Et eodem lib. cap. 31,
narrat mirabile mannae et olei profluvium e sepulcro S. Andreae." He
goes on, § 20: " De hisce liquoribus actum aliquando est in causis
Canonizationum, in causa videlicet, Beati Will. Ebor. in Anglia Archi-
episcopi. Vide Bull. Canoniz."

P. 430. The remaining part of St. William's history, including the
account of the Translation of his Remains, as also of the miracles con-
sequent upon that event, is taken from the Lections, nine in number,
which are in the York Breviary, 1493, and are appointed to be read
on the Festival of the Translation. These are given at length in the
Acta Sanctorum with this notice : —

" Interim revertor ad S. Willielmi Translationem : quae quam
festive fuerit Eboraci celebrata, docet nos egregius de ea Sermo ex
Anglico Codice Ms Macloviopoli (St. Malo) ad Bollandum transmissus,
et pro Officii divini usu in Lectiones novem distributus : sed primis

444 NOTES

aliquot lineis mutilus, quarum videtur fuisse sensus : quod hujus S.
Willielmi Natalis statim ab ejus morte, judicante populo, et con-
sentiente ordinario (nam de Canonizatione aliqua per Romanum
Pontificem nulla uspiam mentio) fuerit in tota provincia," &c.

In the York Breviary, however, of 1493, which is in the Bodleian,
the first Lection begins as follows : " Gloriosus antistes Eboracensis
Willielmus postquam a seculo migravit multis ac magnis miraculis
coruscavit. Unde ex decreto summi Pontificis et fratrum assensu
Catalogo Sanctorum ascriptus est. Dies etiam obitus sui in tota
provincia," &c., and at this place the account in the Acta Sanctorum
commences ; so that the author of the above remark was mistaken in
his suggestion as to what was the purport of the beginning of the
Lection, as there is distinct mention made of the Canonization.

P. 434. " The table of the miracles which are ascribed to this
Saint, which are thirty-six in number, with the indulgence of Pope
Nicholas, are yet to be seen in our vestry ; but time, and of late
years no care, has so obliterated them, that a perfect transcript cannot
be had of them." — Drake's Antiq. of York, bk. ii. ch. i. p. 419.

The miracles which are said to have taken place after the Transla-
tion, described at length in the Acta SS. Vit. S. Gul. § 42-46, are —
the restoration of a child to life who had been drowned, at the shrine
of St. William ; a Knight Templar cured of lameness ; a deformed
person cured during a procession of the Saint's relics ; and a dumb
woman restored to speech during the celebration of the mass, who
having seen a vision of St. John of Beverley and St. William, came as
a pilgrim to the shrine of the latter, in faith that she should be cured
of her infirmity.

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